Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Great Western Railway Bill [King's Consent signified],

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

Kingston-upon-Hull Corporation Bill,

Ramsbottom Urban District Council Bill,

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

Ministry of Health Provisional Orders (No. 4) Bill,

Read a Second time, and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — CHINA.

SHANGHAI (INTERNATIONAL SETTLEMENT).

Mr. BARKER: 1.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can give particulars as to the amount of rates paid respectively by Chinese residents and foreign residents in the International Settlement at Shanghai; and whether he can state the number of the Chinese ratepayers and of the foreign ratepayers, respectively?

The SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir Austen Chamberlain): The Shanghai municipal, land and general rates in 1925 produced amounts roughly equivalent to £325,000 and £570,000. It has been estimated that the approximate proportions of these amounts paid by Chinese are 35 per cent. and 60 per cent, respectively. The number of foreign ratepayers on the 31st March was 2,684. The exact number of
Chinese ratepayers is difficult to ascertain, since the great majority of Chinese landholdings are registered in the names of foreigners.

Mr. BARKER: 2.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Government intends to instruct our representatives on the spot to support the request made by the annual meeting of the ratepayers of the International Settlement of Shanghai that three Chinese members shall be appointed to the municipal council at an early date; and whether he will urge upon our representatives, in order still further to satisfy the aspirations of the Chinese for a share in the municipal government and to allay the prevailing unrest, the desirability of according representation to the Chinese in the International Settlement in proportion to the rates they are paying?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: It should, in the first place, be borne in mind that what now constitutes the International Settlement at Shanghai was originally an area set aside by the Chinese Government as a residence for foreigners who were debarred from the right of unrestricted residence on Chinese soil, and that large numbers of Chinese have subsequently of their own accord elected to come and reside within this area, in order to enjoy the advantages the efficient European municipal administration which has been established there.
In course of time this process has led to the result that Chinese residents greatly out-number the European residents, and His Majesty's Government and their representatives in China fully sympathise with the natural desire of the Chinese element to be represented now on the Shanghai Municipal Council. Negotiations with this object in view were in fact opened between the Chinese Government and the representatives in Peking of the Powers concerned some time before the request of the ratepayers referred to in the question, and His Majesty's Government hope that, as the Chinese gain experience in the arts of governing a great city, meats may be found of satisfying their legitimate aspirations for a greater share in the administration of the settlement.
They are, however, convinced that so drastic a change in the existing régime
as would be involved by the introduction of the principle of representation of nationalities on the Municipal Council in proportion to the rates paid by such nationality would render the election of an efficient Municipal Council extremely difficult, and would be detrimental alike to the Chinese and foreign interests concerned. They are, therefore, not prepared at present to lend their support to any such proposal.

EXTRA-TERRITORIALITY COMMISSION.

Mr. VIANT: 9.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make any statement as to the progress so far achieved by the Commission on Extraterritoriality now sitting at Peking?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Since it assembled in Peking last January, the Commission has been engaged in studying China's legal codes, actual and prospective, in establishing the scope of its inquiry and in examining the work of the Courts and conditions of the prisons in the capital. The Commission has now nearly completed this part of its task, but owing to the disturbed conditions in China and the interruption of railway communications with the provinces it has as yet been unable to make any progress with the examination of the application of the existing legislative system in the provinces. It is, however, still hoped that the Commission may be enabled to carry out at least some portion of this part of their programme.

ANTI-BRITISH STRIKE AND BOYCOTT.

Mr. VIANT: 18 and 19.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1) the sum suggested by the Canton Government to the Governor of Hong Kong that would be necessary to meet the claims of the strikers as compensation;
(2) the number of Chinese coolies, seamen, and engineers who left the Colony of Canton last June and the number that have since returned; and what steps are being taken by the Government in order to bring about a return to peaceful relations?

The SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Amery): I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to his question of the 19th April, to which I have at present nothing to add.

Oral Answers to Questions — ABYSSINIA.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 3.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has received representations or communications from the Government of the French Republic regarding the negotiations between the Royal Italian Government and His Majesty's Government on the question of spheres of influence in Abyssinia; and what is the nature of these representations or communications?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which was given to his question No. 55 on Monday last.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is an entirely different question? I did not refer, neither did he in his reply, to the French Government. May I have an answer to the question on the Paper?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The answer which my hon. Friend (Mr. G. Locker Lampson) gave on my behalf on Monday began with the words, "The Anglo Italian discussions in regard to which informal exchanges of view are in progress with the French Government," etc.

Lieut, - Commander KENWORTHY: Were these informal exchanges of view not preceded by official representations from the French Government?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.

Mr. PONSONBY: 13.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the text of the exchange of Notes between His Majesty's Government and the Italian Government with regard to Abyssinia will be issued as a White Paper in order that this House may have full knowledge of these negotiations before the documents are registered with the League of Nations?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: In accordance with the usual practice, the text of the Notes exchanged will be issued to Parliament, and concurrently registered with the League of Nations.

Oral Answers to Questions — LEAGUE OF NATIONS.

COMPOSITION OF COUNCIL COMMITTEE

Mr. TREVELYAN: 5.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether steps will be taken to insure that the
Commission on the constitution of the Council of the League of Nations shall hold its meetings in public?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The usual procedure followed by Committees of the Council is to consider and decide at their first meeting whether subsequent meetings shall be held in public or not. I assume that this course will be adopted in the present instance.

Mr. TREVELYAN: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is intended that the Committee to study the problems connected with the composition of the Council of the League of Nations shall make recommendations involving the entire revision of the constitution of the League, in so far as the composition of the Council is concerned, or whether it is intended merely to find a solution of the present difficulties?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The right hon. Gentleman probably has in mind the resolution of the Council establishing the Committee, and I need not read it to the House. I cannot predict on what lines, within the limits of the resolution, the Committee's deliberations are likely to develop. I have no information yet as to whether all the States invited to serve on the Committee have accepted, but I do not anticipate that there will be any refusals.

Mr. DALTON: 10.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any agenda has yet been prepared for the forthcoming League of Nations' Commission on the constitution of the Council of the League; if so, whether it will be published; whether all the States invited to serve on the Commission have consented to do so; when the Commission will hold its first meeting; and whether he will now make a statement as to the policy to be pursued by the British representative?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The primary object of the British representative at this Committee, as on the Council, will be to secure the admission of Germany to the League with a permanent seat on the Council. He will be guided generally by the instructions given to Lord Cecil and myself in March which I read to the House after our return, but in view of
the new situation created by the March meeting His Majesty's Government have announced that they will enter on the consideration of the future of the Council free from all engagements to support any particular claim.

ARMS TRAFFIC CONVENTION.

Mr. PONSONBY: 14.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the British ratification of the Arms Traffic Convention adopted in Geneva in 1925 is considered by His Majesty's Government to be conditional upon ratification by other States; if so, the adhesion of What other Governments is considered to be indispensable; what negotiations have been entered upon with these Governments; and whether there is any prospect that ratification will take place in the early future?

Mr. DALTON: 21.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the danger and alarm caused to British subjects resident in the city of Peking by recent aircraft bombardments, he will make representations to the Governments of other Powers in favour of the simultaneous ratification of the Arms Traffic Convention and its application to China?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government consider that it is in the interest of all the arms-producing States to bring the Convention into operation by ratifying simultaneously, and they have recently made this suggestion to the Governments of Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United States. Sufficient replies have not yet been received to enable me to answer the last part of the question. China is also a signatory to the Convention.

BULGARIA (REFUGEE LOAN).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 15.
asked the Secretary of State far Foreign Affairs whether, before approving of a loan to the Bulgarian Government to be made under the auspices or with the approval of the League of Nations, he will obtain the views of His Majesty's Minister in Sofia as to the possibility of securing the restoration of civil law in that country, an amnesty for the political prisoners, and such control over the expenditure of
the money as shall ensure its use for the refugees or prevent its use for maintaining the increased police force?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Should a refugee loan for Bulgaria be floated on a guarantee from the League of Nations, it will be for the League to stipulate the conditions of issue and the uses to which the money is to be put, but I think that it may be taken for granted that if such a loan were floated its proceeds would be earmarked exclusively to refugee purposes.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: May we have it also from the tight hon. Gentleman that if such a loan should be floated, 'some stipulation will be urged by the British representative that there will be a restoration of civil law in Bulgaria and an amnesty for the 1,200 political prisoners?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: There has already been a very wide amnesty, including, I think, several thousand people. I do not think the Council of the League would be well advised to attempt to exercise control over the domestic affairs of the country, in or through such a loan proposal.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will, as is suggested in the question, make inquiries from our Minister in Sofia whether it would not be possible to make some amelioration in these directions dependent upon our support of this refugee loan?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir; I do not think I require any special.

Sir F. WISE: Is there any suggestion that British credits should be given in connection with this loan?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: This is really a hypothetical question, and all the questions arising out of it are hypothetical and all the answers are hypothetical, and I am not sure that any of them are in order.

Mr. RILEY: Is it the case that a loan is being raised in London for refugees in Bulgaria and, if so, what progress has been made?

Mr. SPEAKER: That question should be put down.

PASSPORT CONFERENCE.

Mr. TREVELYAN: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for. Foreign Affairs whether he can inform the House as to what Minister will represent His Majesty's Government at the forthcoming Passport Conference in Geneva; and what will be his instructions?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government will be represented by His Majesty's Minister at Berne, who will have the assistance of officials of the Foreign Office and Home Office. The instructions to the British representative are not yet completed. I will consider whether, when complete, they can be laid before Parliament.

COVENANT (ARTICLE 16).

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 45.
asked the Prime Minister whether he accepts the Continental interpretation of Article 16 of the Covenant, namely, that no nation party to the Covenant can remain neutral in a dispute between any two other European countries concerning any infraction of any of the Peace Treaties; and is he aware of the implications involved in forcing such an interpretation of Article 16 upon Germany at the present time as committing His Majesty's Government to a similar interpretation?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The view of His Majesty's Government on Article 16 was stated in the letter signed by the representatives of Belgium, France, Great Britain, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Poland and handed to the representative of Germany in London on the 1st December last. It was founded upon the terms of the Article and the resolutions of the Assembly of the League, and is declaratory and not legislative. I am not aware that any different view is held on the Continent or elsewhere.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Do I gather from the right hon. Gentleman's reply, that the view of His Majesty's Government as to Article 16 is identical with the view held by Dr. Benesh?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: As Dr. Benesh signed the letter to which I referred, which has been published in the White Paper laid before Parliament, I presume I may take it that his view is as expressed in that letter, and so is the view of His Majesty's Government.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: But is it the right hon. Gentleman's view that' the letter published in the White Paper is identical with the views of Dr. Benesh as expressed in the Memorandum sent to the German Government as a protest against their action in forming a Treaty with Russia which would involve neutrality in certain circumstances?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I am not aware that the Czechoslovakian Government sent any Memorandum.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: A minute?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Or minute.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSO-GERMAN TREATY.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: 7.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether His Majesty's Government is associating itself in any way with M. Benesh's view that the Locarno Powers have a right to demand of the German Government that it shall not undertake an obligation of neutrality vis-a-vis Russia, which might conflict with its future obligations under an interpretation of Article 16 of the Covenant of the League'?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government have not, been associated with any other Government in making representations to Germany about the Russo-German Treaty. As stated in the reply which I gave to the hon. Member for Brightside on the 21st instant, that assurances were offered by the German Government that the Russo-German Treaty would not be inconsistent with the Covenant, and I asked Lord D'Abernon to inform the German Government, of the great importance which we necessarily attached to this point.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the House the reasons for our not associating ourselves with M. Benesh's view?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN.: No, Sir. We now have the text of the Treaty and the Notes exchanged about it. I have not had time to examine them with the care which they demand, and I desire to offer no opinion upon them until I have been able to give them proper study. But in view of the assurances which I received from the German Government, I did not
think it necessary to make any representations beyond that which I have mentioned here, nor was I asked to do so by anybody else.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH TRAWLERS ARREST (ICELAND).

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 8.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has now received a report of the arrest of the Hull trawlers "St. Amant" and "Thomas Hardy," together with a Grimsby trawler, while fishing off Iceland; and whether he has yet decided to make representations to the Icelandic authorities and the Royal Danish Government against interference with British trawlers when on their lawful occasions in the neighbourhood of Iceland?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir. The British Consul at Rejkjavik has reported that the two Hull trawlers were caught fishing within Icelandic territorial waters and were fined 12,500 kroner, the minimum fine which can be imposed for this offence under the present Icelandic law. The Grimsby trawler was arrested in Icelandic territorial waters with her gear in disorder, and as this was her second offence a fine of 7,000 kroner was imposed. The master of each vessel pleaded guilty and stated that he did not wish to appeal against the conviction. In these circumstances the question of representations to the Danish Government obviously does not arise.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the right hon. Gentleman alive to the very heavy nature of these fines for such an offence, and could not some representations be made to avoid this ruinous fining of our men?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. These are not cases in which it would be desirable or proper that I should make any representations. I hope that all British companies and individuals, who are interested in these important fisheries, will have proper regard to the laws as they ought to be observed.

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLO-URUGUAY TREATY

Mr. DALTON: 11.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Arbitration Treaty between this country
and Uruguay ratified in 1919 is still in force; if so, when it will fall due for renewal; whether His Majesty's Government intends to renew it; and whether it is provided in the said Treaty that all disputes, of whatever nature, between the high contracting parties, which it may not have been possible to settle by diplomacy, shall be submitted to arbitration?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: The Treaty referred to by the hon. Member is published as Treaty Series No. 3, 1919. It is still in force, subject to a year's notice of termination by either party. Its effect is as stated.

Mr. DALTON: Do the Government intend to renew it? The Government are not prepared to take any steps to terminate it?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, not at present.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY OF OCCUPATION.

Mr. PONSONBY: 12.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Rhineland High Commission has received any representations from the German Government with regard to the numbers and disposition of the British garrison now quartered in the Rhineland 's?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir. But both the British High Commissioner and the Foreign Office have received such representations, and every effort has been and is being made to avoid causing any unnecessary inconvenience to the local inhabitants.

Mr. PONSONBY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the small town of Konigstein the number of houses requisitioned for married troops is far in excess of what was required for the French troops?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: Will the hon. Gentleman be good enough to look at his main question. There is no reference in it to any particular town. If he wants me to answer about particular places he must please give me notice of his question.

Colonel WEDGWOOD: As a result of these representations, have any arrange-
ments been come to which would be satisfactory to the people who made the representations?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not, think that the relations between the British troops of occupation and the inhabitants have ever been bad. I think that, provided goodwill is shown by the German authorities, there will be no friction between the troops and the inhabitants.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is it not the case that the Germans would be delighted if all British troops were withdrawn from the Rhineland?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: I suppose any nation would desire that its territory should be free from foreign occupying troops. That is quite true, but I do not think the people on whom these troops are billeted, in the present stringency of financial conditions which exists in Germany as elsewhere, always find the presence of a British officer in their house undesirable.

Oral Answers to Questions — HONG KONG (TRADE).

Mr. VIANT: 16.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the amount of import and export trade into and out of the colony of Hong Kong during the last two quarters of 1925 and the first quarter of 1926 and during the corresponding periods of 1924 and 1925?

Mr. AMERY: The official returns for the last half of 1925 and the first quarter of 1926 are not yet available. I will communicate with the hon. Member should he so desire as soon as the returns have been received.

Oral Answers to Questions — MEXICO (BRITISH INTERESTS).

Mr. BARCLAY-HARVEY: 17.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what steps the Government proposes to take to protect the interests of British subjects in Mexico whose interests are threatened by recent Mexican legislation?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN: His Majesty's Government have been in correspondence with the Mexican Government on this subject, and their representations have been courteously received. His Majesty's Government will not fail to take any further diplomatic action that may be necessary to safeguard these interests.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY.

STAFF AND PERSONNEL.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: 22.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what was the number of the Admiralty Headquarters Staff and the total numbers serving under the Admiralty command in April, 1914, and at the present time?

The FIRST LORD of the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Bridgeman): I regret that figures for 1st April, 1914, are not available. The figures for 1st August, 1914, are 2,072 and 215,331, respectively, and for 1st April, 1926, 3,271 and 177,537. I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate the details in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

The details are as follow:

The total civilian and naval staff (including messengers and charwomen) employed at the Admiralty on the 1st August, 1914, numbered 2,072. On the 1st April, 1926, the number was 3,271.

The personnel of the Navy on the 15th July, 1914, numbered 146,047. On the 15th April, 1926, the number was 100,486.

The total civilian staff employed in all Admiralty establishments at home and abroad, including Admiralty headquarters, numbered 71,204 on the 1st August, 1914, and 80,069 at the present time. These figures comprise the following:



1st August,




1914.
1926.


Non-industrial staff:


Headquarters
1,920
3,018


Elsewhere
3,586
5,812


Industrial staff
65,698
71,239



71,204
80,069

If the hon. Member will refer to my reply of the 18th November last, to the hon. Member for Central Nottingham (Mr. Bennett)—OFFICIAL REPORT, cols. 358–364—he will find a detailed explanation why the number of civilian staff cannot be proportionally related with those of naval personnel.

MARRIED OFFICERS (ALLOWANCES).

Lieut. - Colonel ACLANDTROYTE: 23 and 24.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty (1) whether he is aware that, awing to the nature of the service, married officers of the Navy have to live apart from their wives for very much longer
periods than married officers of the Army and Air Force, and that this adds very considerably to their expenses; and whether he will consider the grant of some form of separation allowance to naval officers to help them to pay these extra expenses;
(2) whether he is aware that married officers of the Army either receive lodging allowances or married quarters and that married officers in the Navy, with a few exceptions, do not receive these privileges; whether he is aware that the pay of naval officers not on the lodging list compares unfavourably with that of Army officers who are on the lodging list; and whether be has any suggestions to make for bringing the pay and allowances of married naval officers up to the same standard as that of their brother officers in the Army?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I regret that I have nothing to add to the reply furnished on the 15th March to a question by my hon. and gallant Friend of a similar nature (OFFICIAL REPORT, cols. 36–37).

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 30.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has further considered the possibility of giving children's allowances to married officers in the Royal Navy?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to my reply of the 8th March last (OFFICIAL REPORT, Col. 1959).

FUEL RESERVES.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: 25.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that the Committee on National Expenditure in 1922 recommended economy being effected in regard to oil stocks and oil storage for naval requirements; and whether this subject has been considered and expenditure reduced?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Committee on National Expenditure, in 1922, stated that
the question of the fuel reserves of the Navy is a matter of high policy. We refrain from discussing it in this Report.
The subject is constantly under consideration by the Admiralty, and is reviewed each year by the Government in connection with the Navy Estimates, and all economy in this direction, which is at present possible, has been effected.

COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: 26.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty how many officers and ratings, respectively, have refused duty or been guilty of other acts of insubordination during the last 12 months as the result of supposed Communist propaganda and incitement; and whether he has traced any weakening of the discipline of the Royal Navy as the direct, or indirect, result of such alleged incitement and propaganda?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: Insubordination may result from Communist propaganda without disclosing its cause, but in the last 12 months no refusal of duty or other act of insubordination plainly connected with Communist propaganda has come to notice. There has been no weakening of the discipline of the Royal Navy.

Commander BELLAIRS: May I ask whether Communist propaganda and in citement is not directed to mass insubordination in certain circumstances which have not yet arisen?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I cannot usefully add anything to the original answer.

ROSYTH AND PEMBROKE EMPLOYÉS (TRANSFER).

Colonel DAY: 27.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty what steps have been taken towards providing housing accommodation for the employés transferred from Rosyth and Pembroke to Chatham dockyard?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. Davidson): The local authorities have been made aware of the numbers of men likely to be transferred to Chatham Dockyard. I have no information yet as to what action has been taken by them in the matter.

CHAPLAINS.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 28.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he has made any further inquiries into the financial plight of many naval chaplains; and whether, in view of the fact that these chaplains receive less pay than their brother officers and receive no marriage allowance, he can seriously consider ameliorating their position?

Mr. DAVIDSON: I regret that I have nothing to add to my reply of the 18th December last on this subject (OFFICIAL REPORT, cols. 1830–1).

PENSIONABLE SERVICE.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: 29.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that there are many established men, discharged at the age of 60, whose applications to extend their service for a few months in order to complete an extra full year's pensionable service, are refused; and whether, when this concession cannot be granted, he will consider giving these men a refund of the weekly deduction from the wages of established men in respect of the odd months of their service which are not counted towards their pension?

Mr. DAVIDSON: The retention of established men over the normal age for retirement involves the payment of wages in addition to enabling the men to increase their service for the calculation of retiring allowances. Men who can be economically employed may be and frequently are retained beyond the age of 60 years for periods not exceeding three months to complete an additional year of pensionable service; but there can be no general undertaking to allow such retention, and where it is not allowed there can be no additional payment, in respect of any difference between the wages of men on the hired and established lists, respectively, for the odd months of service not counted for pension.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this is not a request that men generally should be allowed to stay on; and is it not the case that if they have not completed a full year's service they get no advantage whatever of the contributions from their wages towards pension, and, further, is it not very unjust in particular cases that they should not be allowed to complete their time or alternatively have some refund of the monies deducted?

Mr. DAVIDSON: I will consider that matter.

LOSS OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP "HAMPSHIRE."

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: 31.
asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, in view
of the statement of the Lord Provost of Glasgow that Inspector Vance, of the Glasgow Police Force made a report to the Admiralty regarding the sinking of His Majesty's Ship "Hampshire," he will say why, in the face of this report, which has not been published, he has stated on several occasions that all information regarding the matter has been published?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: The Lord Provost of Glasgow informs me that he has made no statement as to Inspector Vance having made any report regarding the sinking of the "Hampshire." No such report, so far as I can trace, was ever made to the Admiralty, and I know of no foundation for the suggestion that he has some special information on this subject.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the references in telegrams which passed from the Admiral commanding at Orkney and Shetland to his Flag Admiral, and that these were the officers in charge at Longhope at that time?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I have seen the telegrams to which the hon. Member is referring and there is nothing in them to show that any report was made on the "Hampshire." I have had a letter from the Lord Provost at Glasgow in which he says that he never said that any report had been made about the "Hampshire" by Inspector Vance. All he said was that any reports on any subject which Inspector Vance might have made would have been forwarded to the Admiralty official at the Orkneys.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Will the right hon. Gentleman receive proof of the statement having been made in telegrams by the Lord Provost?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I am prepared to read out the Lord Provost's answer—
The last two telegrams referred to in the 'Referee' arrived in Glasgow when I was from home, and were answered by my secretary. It is quite clear to me, as I am sure it must be to you from a perusal of these telegrams"—
and so it would be to the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Scrymgeour) if he would read them carefully—
that I made no statement about Inspector Vance having made any report regarding the sinking of the Hampshire.'

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: Would the right hon. Gentleman be prepared to hear this statement by the Lord Provost? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] I am asking if this is not correct? It is from the Lord Provost—
All reports furnished by Detective. Inspector Vance during his stay in Orkney were made to the Admiral Commanding Orkney and Shetland at Longhope, or the Flag Admiral.—Lord Provost, Glasgow.

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: There is one mistake in the hon. Member's quotation. He says "all reports," and he seems to indicate all reports on this matter. But what the Lord Provost said was that all reports furnished by Detective Inspector Vance were made to the Admiral commanding at the Orkney and Shetland or to his Flag Admiral, and there is no reference whatever to the "Hampshire."

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: With regard to the "Hampshire," the question is—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member had better submit any further question.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR: I am prepared to submit it.

Commander BELLAIRS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that none of this discussion nine years after the event would have taken place had the Admiralty followed the invariable practice of the Navy in former days of holding a court-martial whenever a ship was lost; and will he see that in future that takes place when a ship is lost?

Mr. BRIDGEMAN: I hope that no such circumstances will arise.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

GLOVE INDUSTRY.

Mr. BASIL PETO: 35.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he can give the latest figures of unemployment in the leather and fabric glove industry and the corresponding figures of 12 months earlier, and the total number of people employed in these industries at the same dates?

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: 39.
asked the Minister of Labour what is the state of employment at the present time in the leather and fabric glove trades?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. Betterton): Separate figures for the leather and fabric glove industries are not available, as these are included with other industries in the group "Other Dress."

Mr. PETO: Are figures available for the fabric and leather glove trades together, or are there no figures available for the glove industry as a whole?

Mr. BETTERTON: We have not got those figures. As I have said, they are under the general heading of "Other Dress," and we have no separate figures.

Mr. PETO: Will the hon. Gentleman consider the advisability of having these figures so tabulated?

Mr. BETTERTON: I will certainly consider that.

Sir H. CROFT: Is it not a fact that in this particular industry of fabric and leather gloves there is practically no unemployment at the present time?

Mr. BETTERTON: I. could not answer that without notice. If my hon. and gallant Friend wants the information, will he please put a question down?

PIANO MANUFACTURE.

Sir H. CROFT: 40.
asked the Minister of Labour how many men are employed in the manufacture of pianos; and how many men in the industry are at present unemployed?

Mr. BETTERTON: Separate figures for the manufacture of pianos are not available, as this industry is included with others in the group "Musical instruments."

Sir H. CROFT: Can the hon. Gentleman say what is the answer to the question with regard to the unemployed in the industry?

Mr. BETTERTON: The latest figure that I have for the number insured in the "Musical Instruments" group is, on the 22nd March, 1926, in Great Britain, 21,590, and the number unemployed was 1,596, or 7.4 per cent.

Sir H. CROFT: Can the hon. Gentleman say if that is an improvement on the figures of last year?

Mr. BETTERTON: It is an improvement from 7.8 last year to 7.4 now.

Lieut.-Colonel CLIFTON BROWN: Is not this improvement far less than the improvement in other industries which have not been protected?

Mr. R. MORRISON: Is it not a fact that if the figures for the first three months of the present year are taken, there is more unemployment in the musical instrument trades than there was last year?

Mr. BETTERTON: I could not answer that question.

BRITISH SEAMEN, LIVERPOOL.

Mr. HAYES: 42.
asked the Minister of Labour the number of unemployed British seamen registering in the port of Liverpool on or about 17th March last; whether arrangements exist between the shipping companies and the Employment Exchanges for filling vacancies in crews of ships signing articles in Merseyside ports; and whether any steps can be taken to prevent the importation of Arab and other alien seamen while Merseyside seamen are out of work?

Mr. BETTERTON: The number of unemployed British seamen registered at Liverpool on the 17th March was 4,392. There are no special arrangements between the shipowners and the Employment Exchanges for filling vacancies in crews signing articles at Merseyside ports. The importation of alien seamen from abroad is a, question which involves the general regulations affecting aliens for which my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Home Affairs is responsible.

Mr. HAYES: Could not the Department collaborate with the President of the Board of Trade to see whether the difficulties arising from this matter could not be adjusted?

Mr. BETTERTON: Well, that is a difficult question, as we are bound, of course, by the Merchant Shipping Act, and to alter it would require statutory authority.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the Minister of Labour satisfied with a state of affairs under which employment in many other industries is forbidden to aliens, but in the shipping industry it is almost encouraged?

Mr. BETTERTON: I could not accept the latter part of the question. With regard to the question as to how far we could collaborate with the President of the Board of Trade, I will consult with him on that point, but, as I have already stated, we are bound by the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act.

EXCHANGES, MIDDLETON (RENT).

Mr. SANDEMAN: 43.
asked the Minister of Labour what weekly rent he pays for the use of premises in Long Street, Middleton, Lancashire, and also in Milton Street, Middleton, Lancashire?

Captain HACKING: I have been asked to reply, on behalf of the First Commissioner of Works, that it is not the practice of the Department to disclose rents paid for individual premises, as such disclosures may prejudice future negotiations.

Mr. SANDEMAN: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the Long Street premises are used as a, Liberal 'Club and as an Independent Labour Party Club, and that the rents are £108 and £62 10s.?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member seems to know more than the Minister.

Mr. SANDEMAN: On a point of Order—

Mr. SPEAKER: The time for giving information is after 3.45, not at Question Time.

Sir HARRY BRITTAIN: What precautions are taken in different parts of the country to see that the lowest possible rent is paid for Employment Exchanges?

Captain HACKING: Precautions are taken to see that the rent is the lowest possible.

Sir H. CROFT: Is not the rent paid far in excess of the assessment of these premises?

Captain HACKING: I am going to give further consideration to this case, as I think there may be something in the question which at present I do not understand. I should like to confer with my hon. Friend.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: But is it not rather upsetting to find a case of this kind at all?

Mr. SANDEMAN: If this is happening in one place, may it not be happening all over the country, and may we not be paying much too much for these premises?

BENEFIT DISALLOWED.

Mr. RILEY: 44.
asked the Minister of Labour under what authority unemployment committees may refuse unemployed benefit to a person who is otherwise entitled to benefit on the ground that he has done work, or is doing work, on his allotment, or may threaten to prosecute a person receiving unemployed benefit because he has done, or is doing, work on his allotment?

Mr. BETTERTON: The claim to unemployment benefit of a person who has ordinarily worked on his allotment in his spare time is not affected, so long as he is otherwise entitled, unless his remuneration or profit from the allotment exceeds £1 a week. If, for the purpose of obtaining benefit, he knowingly made a false representation, he would be liable to prosecution. If the hon. Member will give me particulars of any specific case he has in mind, I will have inquiries made.

Mr. MARCH: Is it thought by the Ministry that there is a possibility of any allotment holder making over £l a week, when a farmer cannot do it on an acre?

Mr. BARKER: 46.
asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that Trevor W. Gwynne, 32, Crown Street, Crumlin, Men., insurance agent, 'has been refused unemployment benefit; that Gwynne has two and a half years' credit of stamps with the insurance unemployment scheme and has received no benefit from them; will he therefore have this case fully investigated with a view to benefit being paid in this case?

Mr. BETTERTON: I am making inquiries into this ease, and will let the hon. Member know the result.

SIGNING OF REGISTER, BOROUGH.

Colonel DAY: 48.
asked the Minister of Labour the reason for the alteration of the hour when unemployed must sign the register at the Borough (Walworth Road) Employment Exchange; the reason why five signatures, per week are now required instead of three as hitherto; and will he cause the recent alterations mentioned to be withdrawn?

Mr. BETTERTON: It is the practice to alter the times of attendance of individuals periodically. As regards frequency of attendance, I understand the actual requirement at present at this Exchange is attendance on four days a week (not five as stated in the question), except in the case of casual workers. I should point out that the Regulations under the Unemployment Insurance Acts normally require attendance on each day of unemployment, and the relaxations allowing less frequent attendance can only be permitted so long as they are unavoidable.

Colonel DAY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the compulsion of making these men sign on early in the morning stops them from having any opportunity of obtaining work?

Mr. BETTERTON: No, Sir, but it is necessary from time to time to alter the hours, owing to the fact that there may be a greater rush at one hour and less pressure at another time, and so we endeavour to regulate the attendance.

Mr. W. THORNE: When you are about to alter the hours for signing, are the men made acquainted with the fact a day or two before?

Mr. BETTERTON: I am not sure about that, but I think it is only reasonable it should be done, and I will inquire about it.

Colonel DAY: Has the time been altered to 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning so that the excuse can be given that they are not genuinely seeking work?

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FLINT GLASS MAKERS' SOCIETY.

Mr. B. PETO: 36.
asked the Minister of Labour how many subscribing members were included in the National Flint Glass Makers' Society in the years 1913, 1919, and at the present or last recorded date?

Mr. BETTERTON: According to returns received from the society by the Ministry of Labour, the number of contributing members of this society at the end of 1925 was 391; at that date there were in addition 118 members unemployed and 61 superannuated; figures of contributing members for earlier years are not in the possession of the Ministry.

Mr. PETO: Why has the hon. Gentlemen got figures for last year, and yet has no figures for a year as recent as 1919? Would he be surprised to hear that there were six times as many members in this society in 1919 as there are now?

Oral Answers to Questions — MESSRS. BOULTON AND PAUL, NORWICH (TRADE DISPUTE).

Captain FAIRFAX: 41.
asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the dispute between Messrs. Boulton and Paul and the workers in their wire-netting department at Norwich; and whether, having regard to the continuance of the stoppage of work, he will take steps to effect a settlement of the dispute?

Mr. BETTERTON: I am aware of the dispute to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers. My Department has been in constant touch with both sides and will continue to take such action as is possible to assist in reach a settlement.

Captain FAIRFAX: Has the hon. Gentleman formed the view that safeguarding this industry would afford a solution of the dispute; and, if so, will he use his influence with the Board of Trade in that direction?

Mr. SPEAKER: This Minister does not deal with safeguarding.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE.

AIRCRAFT TANKS.

Mr. HANNON: 53.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether, seeing that two years ago a test was carried out under the auspices of the Air Board for tanks for use in aeroplanes which would not leak when crashed from 100 feet or when perforated with machine-gun bullets, and that certain tanks satisfactorily passed all the tests imposed, but in spite of this have not been put into general use by the Air Ministry, he will explain why these tanks are not being used in view of the recent serious accidents which have occurred?

The SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Samuel Hoare): The production for use in service aircraft of a petrol tank which will be proof against fire has been the subject of many experiments, and these experiments are being, and will be,
steadily pursued. There are, however, considerable technical difficulties which have not been overcome, and I cannot accept my hon. Friend's suggestion that a type of fireproof tank suitable for service use is already in existence. He may rest assured that the-importance of producing a fireproof tank is fully realised.

CRANWKLL RAILWAY.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: 54.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether there is a deficit for 1925–26 on the working of the Cranwell Railway; and, if so, whether, having regard to the loss in 1924–25, considerably exceeding that in 1923–24, and to the fact that motor omnibuses run between the points served by the railway, he will consider whether economy could be effected by closing the line and selling the undertaking?

Sir S. HOARE: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, but the deficit or, as I should prefer to call it, the net cost, is likely to be less than in the previous financial year, and proposals which may still further reduce it in future are now under consideration. As I stated last year, however, receipts cannot he expected to balance expenditure on a line of this nature. As regards the second part, the size and situation of the station make the railway indispensable. Even if it could be closed down, no economy would result, in view of the high cost of road transport of heavy stores. A spur line of this sort would have no sale value except as scrap, and any private enterprise would have to be heavily subsidised to run it.

Sir FREDRIC WISE: Might I ask my right hon. Friend what was the loss on this railway?

Sir S. HOARE: I have not the exact figure in my mind. It was less last year than the year before, and we hope to diminish it still further this year.

Mr. HARMSWORTH: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that in future years there will be a deficit, and, if so, does he not think that if the deficit is large enough it would be an economy to do away with the railway?

Sir S. HOARE: I have looked into the question with that in my mind, but I have satisfied myself that, as things are at pre-
sent, it is cheaper to have the railway than heavy road transport. If economy could be shown to exist, I should obviously prefer the second alternative, but at present it does not exist.

MESSRS. BEARDMORE & CO., DALMUIR (TRADE DISPUTE).

Mr. KIRKWOOD: 55.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware that the sheet-metal workers engaged in the construction of the all-metal aeroplanes by the firm of William Beardmore and Company, Limited, Dalmuir, are now on strike because the firm announced a reduction of 50 per cent. on the basis time for riveting; and that the work is now being done by unskilled labourers and is so inferior that it is not being passed by the Government inspectors; and whether he will see that fair wages are paid by those contractors?

Sir S. HOARE: A complaint was received with regard to the rate of wages paid by Messrs. Beardmore to certain workmen employed in aircraft manufacture, and the Air Ministry requested the complainants to furnish further information with a view to the investigation of the case. The information asked for has not yet been furnished, but, in view of the particulars now given by the hon. Member, my Department has addressed an inquiry to the company in regard to the matter in dispute.

ACCOUNTANT OFFICERS (GUARANTEE BONDS).

Colonel DAY: 56.
asked the Secretary of State for Air whether, in view of the falsification of accounts by an accountant officer, referred to on page 65 of the Air Service Appropriation Account, 1924–25, he will cause all officers handling public funds to enter into a guarantee bond equal to the amount of money likely to be handled by them during the course of their duties?

Sir S. HOARE: The proposal for a guarantee bond has been considered and discussed on various occasions, and more particularly when the Accountant Branch of the Royal Air Force was first established. It was decided, however, to adhere to the general practice of the public service, which is not to require such bonds in the case of permanent pensionable posts. The prospect of losing pension or gratuity constitutes the
fidelity guarantee, and the Government follows its usual practice in carrying its risks, which is considered less expensive than insurance or its equivalent in extra pay to meet the cost of personal premiums.

Oral Answers to Questions — DIPLOMATIC AND CONSULAR BUILDINGS.

Captain CROOKSHANK: 58.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, what is the total number of Legation houses in the charge of his Department; how many were purchased in 1925 and how many will be purchased in 1926; and whether, in view of the need for public economy, he will endeavour to restrict to the utmost capital expenditure under this head?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Captain Douglas Hacking): Twenty-seven legation houses and 11 embassy houses are in the care of His Majesty's Office of Works. Two of the legation houses were acquired in 1925, and it is proposed to acquire a residence at Angora in 1926. The need for the restriction of capital expenditure to the utmost possible extent is fully realised. The Estimates for Diplomatic and Consular buildings for 1926 show a large reduction, as compared with previous years.

Sir H. BRITTAIN: May I ask whether anything has been done to dispose of the very fine Embassy buildings at Constantinople?

Captain HACKING: That item can be raised on Thursday in Debate.

Oral Answers to Questions — BODIAM CASTLE (SUNDAY OPENING).

Captain CROOKSHANK: 59.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether Bodiam Castle, which was left to the nation by the generosity of the late Marquess of Curzon of Kedleston, is in the care of his Department whether he is aware that the castle is not open to the public on Sundays, though other monuments of the same class are open on Sundays; and whether he will arrange that in the future
it may be possible for the public to avail themselves of the opportunity of inspecting Bodiam Castle on Sundays as well as week-days?

Captain HACKING: The castle was left to the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or National Beauty, and is not in the charge of the Office of Works.

Sir F. WISE: Is there any cost to the taxpayer in keeping up this castle?

Captain HACKING: No, Sir; it is kept up by voluntary contributions.

Captain CROOKSHANK: Will the hon. and gallant Gentleman use his great influence with the Trust, with a view to having this monument opened on Sundays, because a very large number of trippers, including hon. Members of this House, go there on Sundays, and cannot get in?

Captain HACKING: I will convey the suggestion to the National Trust.

Lieut.-Commander KENWORTHY: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the grounds, the moat and the outside of the castle are open on Sundays, and that it is quite unnecessary to employ men on the Sabbath to keep the rest of it open?

Captain HACKING: I am quite aware that the outside is open on Sundays.

Sir. H. BRITTAIN: And the moat!

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL MINING INDUSTRY.

RAIL-BORNE COAL. (SHORT WEIGHT).

Mr. R. MORRISON: 60.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he is yet in a position to publish a Report of his inquiry into the subject of short weight in rail-borne coal?

Major Sir HARRY BARNSTON: I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend regrets that it has not yet been possible to complete this inquiry. The position is still as indicated in the reply that he gave to the hon. Member for Tradeston (Mr. T. Henderson) on the 16th February.

ACCIDENTS (WINDING-ROPES).

Mr. RILEY (for Mr. PALING): 61.
asked the Secretary for Mines how many
accidents due to broken winding ropes have occurred at collieries in Great Britain during the last 10 years; how many persons were injured in such accidents; and in how many cases did the injuries prove fatal?

Sir H. BARNSTON: I have been asked to reply. The recent accident at the Old Hemmingfield Pumping Shaft is the only fatal accident from this cause since the beginning of 1916. As regards non-fatal accidents, returns were not collected during the War years 1916, 1917 and 1918: from 1919 to 1924 inclusive there were nine accidents causing injury to 21 persons: the figures for 1925 are not yet available.

Mr. SEXTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Lancashire particularly there are at least three cases where apparatus is in use which has prevented accidents, and which has been tested to carry 10 tons. Will he make inquiries as to these machines with a view to the prevention of accidents in future?

Sir H. BARNSTON: I will represent that to the Minister.

HOUSING (MINING DISTRICTS).

Viscountess ASTOR: 63.
asked the Minister of Health how many houses in mining districts have been built or have been authorised to be built in England and Wales since 1st January, 1919; what is the amount of money contributed from the Exchequer or authorised for such houses; what amounts have been loaned or guaranteed to colliery companies for housing; and how many local authorities have given, or are giving, financial assistance from the rates for the provision of houses in such districts?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): My right hon. Friend will have a statement prepared giving the information desired by the Noble Lady as far as it is available.

STEAMSHIP "BENECIA" (ARAB SEAMEN).

Mr. HAYES: 65.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware
that Arab seamen were brought from Cardiff to Liverpool for the crew of the steamship "Benecia," owned by the Oriel Shipping Company, the articles of which were signed at Liverpool on 17th March last; whether the officers of his Department are instructed to take exception to this procedure in view of the several thousand unemployed seamen registering in Liverpool each week; and, if not, whether he will consider the taking of steps to prevent a recurrence of such action, which has caused considerable resentment among unemployed British seamen on the Merseyside?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Sir Burton Chadwick): I am informed that 12 Arab seamen brought from Cardiff were engaged for service on the steamship "Benicia" at Liverpool on 17th April. This is not contrary to law, and, so long as the provisions of the law are fully complied with, the Board of Trade have no power to forbid such engagements.

Mr. HAYES: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he appreciates the intensity of the feeling of unemployed British seamen when Arabs are imported while there are 4,000 or 5,000 seamen unemployed, and the danger that may arise from racial feeling growing up, which everyone would deplore? Cannot his Department do something to get at grips with this question of employing British seamen on ships registered under the British flag?

Sir B. CHADWICK: I appreciate the feeling to width the hon. Member refers, but we are bound by the law: The Aliens Restriction Act requires that the captain, the chief officer and the chief engineer must be British, otherwise aliens may be employed, if they can pass the language test, provided they are paid wages which are the same as the Maritime Board wages. Beyond that the law does not allow the Board of Trade to intervene. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour said just now he would confer with the Board of Trade on this matter, and I shall be very glad to talk it over with him.

Colonel DAY: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us the difference between the wages of Arab seamen and British seamen?

Sir B. CHADWICK: I did not quite catch that question.

Mr. SANDEMAN ALLEN: Is it not a fact that in the case of certain ships going to tropical places it is necessary to have natives, and that this does not in any way affect the general principle of not employing aliens instead of British seamen?

Mr. SPEAKER: This is a question involving the possibility of legislation.

Oral Answers to Questions — DUTY-FREE IMPORTS (GREAT BRITAIN AND UNITED STATES).

Commander BELLAIRS: 66.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the value of merchandise imported into the United States from Great Britain and Northern Ireland free of duty, and the value of the merchandise imported from the United States into Great Britain and Northern Ireland free of duty, for the latest year for which the figures are available?

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL (Secretary, Overseas Trade Department): I have been asked to reply. In 1924 the duty-free imports into the United States from Great Britain and Northern Ireland amounted to 30½ millions sterling; and those into Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the United States to 215½ millions sterling. There is no later figure available yet as to their duty-free imports from us; but our duty-free imports from them rose in 1025 to 221 millions sterling.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

HOUSING (MINING DISTRICTS).

Viscountess ASTOR: 67.
asked the Secretary for Scotland how many houses in mining districts have been built or are authorised to be built in Scotland since 1st January, 1919; what is the amount of money contributed from the Exchequer or authorised for such houses; what amounts have been loaned or guaranteed; and how many local authorities have given, or are giving, financial assistance from the rates for the provision of houses in colliery areas?

The SECRETARY for SCOTLAND (Sir John Gilmour): I am obtaining the information, arid will communicate with
the Noble Lady when the same is available.

EDUCATION.

Mr. STEPHEN: 68 and 69.
asked the Secretary for Scotland (1) the number of elementary teachers in Scotland and the number of secondary teachers, and the cost of salaries in each case, and the number of children receiving elementary and secondary education, respectively;
(2) the estimated cost per child, and the estimated teacher cost per child, in elementary and secondary schools, respectively, in Scotland?

Sir J. GILMOUR: In Scotland the relations between primary education and secondary education are so close and intimate that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to arrive at figures which would not be purely arbitrary and therefore misleading in one direction or the other. I will, however, see what can be done and will communicate the result to the hon. Member as soon as possible.

Mr. STEPHEN: Would the right hon. Gentleman use his best endeavours to get me the estimated cost per child and the estimated cost per teacher as soon as possible, and let me have the information?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Yes, Sir; I am making what inquiries I can, but it may be extremely difficult to procure these figures.

Oral Answers to Questions — PASSPORTS (COLOURED BRITISH SEAMEN).

Mr. LANSBURY: 71.
asked the Home Secretary whether lascars and other coloured seamen and firemen who are British citizens are expected to carry passports while carrying on their duties on board ships travelling between this country and other parts of the world?

Captain HACKING: The Aliens Order requires that every person, unless under 16 years of age, landing in the United Kingdom shall be in possession of a passport or some other document establishing his nationality and identity to the satisfaction of an immigration officer; but this does not apply to a member of the crew of a ship who remains on the ship's articles and does not seek to land for discharge.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALI SHIRRAH.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: 73.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he has received any representations as to the granting of permission to Ali Shirrah to return to Somaliland from the Seychelles, to which he was deported in 1919; and what action does he propose to take?

Mr. AMERY: I have received such representations, but do not propose to take any action until I am informed by the Governor of Somaliland that the return of this man will not endanger the peace of the Protectorate.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he realises that in Colonies and countries where people have no representation, and where there is no popular control over the actions of Governors, Parliament should rather control them from here, and is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to take that course?

Mr. AMERY: Yes, Sir, Parliament does control, but I hope Parliament will, through me, give reasonable discretion, and have some confidence in the Governor, who is appointed to look after the affairs of a Colony.

Mr. SAKLATVALA: Is there no difference between Parliament controlling the Governor and awaiting dictation from the Governor as to what the Secretary of State has got to do?

Mr. SPEAKER: That is rather argumentative.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALLIED WARSHIPS (SALVAGE, DARDANELLES).

Colonel ENGLAND: 4.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the Turkish Government has granted a concession to a private firm to raise the wrecks of a certain number of the Allied warships sunk in the Dardanelles; which are the British vessels concerned; whether any British officers or men were lost in the vessels; and, if so, what steps are being taken to ensure proper treatment of the remains which may be discovered?

Mr. A. M. SAMUEL: I have been asked by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to reply. My right hon.
Friend is informed that the Turkish Government have granted to a private firm a concession for raising and breaking up all Turkish arid enemy vessels sunk in territorial waters. The British vessels lost in the Dardanelles are:
Battleships: "Irresistible," "Ocean,
Goliath," "Triumph," "Majestic.
Destroyers: "Louis," "Arno.
Submarines: "E.15," "A.E.2," "E.7,
E.20," "E.I4.
Monitors: "M.30," "Raglan," "M.28.
Minesweeper: "Hythe.
Tug: "Marsden.
Trawlers: "Okino," "Balmedie,
Lundy," "Renarro.
A number of British officers and men were lost in these vessels.
While my right hon. Friend has no doubt that the Turkish Government have done or will do what is necessary and proper, he is addressing His Majesty's Ambassador in Turkey on the subject.

Oral Answers to Questions — CATERING AND DISTRIBUTIVE TRADES (WAGES).

Mr. KELLY: 52.
asked the Minister of Labour what evidence is required to prove the existence of sweating in any trade, in view of the fact that in the Reports recently published by his Department it is stated that wages in some branches of the catering trade are less than 20s., including tips, for a 49 and 50 hour week; that women's wages in some branches of the grocery, retail drapery, and fancy goods, and the meat distributive trades are also at a low grade with long hours; whether, seeing that in the Reports on the meat., drapery, and catering trades it is stated that the degree of organisation among workers in these trades is no higher than 25 per cent., and in most of the trades less than 10 per cent., he will set up trade boards in these trades; and whether the trade board already in existence in the wholesale and retail grocery trades will now consider minimum rates of wages, and examine the question of length of hours, especially in regard to the large number of juvenile employés in this trade?

Lieut. - Colonel WATTS-MORGAN: 50.
asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the fact that over 30 per cent. of female workers of 21 years of age and
over in the retail grocery trade are shown by the Report recently issued by him to be receiving wages at less than 30s. per week, that over 63 per cent. of female workers in that trade are shown to be working 50 hours per week or more, and that less than 2 per cent. of all workers in that trade are estimated to be organised, he will reconsider his decision not to put statutory minimum rates of wages into operation in the trade; and, if not, what action he proposes to take with regard to the existing grocery and provisions trade boards?

Mr. BETTERTON: I will, if I may, take these questions together. I cannot within the limits of a Parliamentary answer add to the statement on the points raised contained in the replies given to the right hon. Member for Central Edinburgh (Mr. Graham) on the 11th February, and to the hon. and gallant Member for Rhondda (Lieut.-Colonel Watts-Morgan) on the 15th March.

Mr. KELLY: Is it the opinion of the Minister of Labour that 20s. per week is anything other than a sweated wage; and, further, whether the Grocery Trade Board intends to set up minimum rates for those people mentioned in the third part of the question?

Mr. BETTERTON: With regard to the latter part of the question, the Grocery Trade Board was dissolved by virtue of powers contained in the Regulations made under the Act, though the trade itself is not taken outside the Act. With regard to the other part of the question, I can only refer him to the answer given by my right hon. Friend the other day.

Mr. KELLY: May I ask whether it is the opinion of the Minister that 20s. per week is an adequate wage at this time in this country?

Mr. BETTERTON: That is obviously a matter which must be discussed in Debate, and which I cannot deal with in an answer.

Mr. TAYLOR: May I ask whether the Government's policy with regard to Trade Boards is a Cabinet decision or whether what has been done has been done by the Minister as a matter of administration?

Mr. SPEAKER: I should like to see that question on the Paper.

Oral Answers to Questions — ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION.

Mr. STEPHEN: 70.
asked the President of the Board of Education the estimated cost per child, and the estimated teacher cost per child, in elementary and secondary schools, respectively?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of EDUCATION (Lord Eustace Percy): The latest ascertained figures are as follow:

Elementary Schools: Cost per unit of average attendance £11 13s. 3d., which includes £8 6s. 7d. in respect of teachers' salaries.

Secondary Schools (grant-aided): Cost per registered pupil: Gross, £26 12s., which includes £20 15s. for teachers' salaries; net, £16 7s., which includes £12 15s. net for teachers' salaries.

The net figure for secondary schools is arrived at by deducting receipts from fees and endowments from the total, and an apportionment of them from salaries.

BILLS PRESENTED.

PASSMORE EDWARDS (TILBURY) COTTAGE HOSPITAL CHARITY BILL,

"to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the charities known as the Passmore Edwards District Cottage Hospital at Tilbury, in the County of Essex, and the Seamen's Hospital Society, in the County of London," presented by Lieut.-Colonel SPENDER-CLAY; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 96.]

ALLHALLOWS AND MARWOOD (HONITON) CHARITIES BILL,

"to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the two charities known as Allhallows Charity and the Charity of Thomas Marwood, respectively, both in the Parish of Honiton, in the County of Devon," presented by Lieut.-Colonel SPENDER-CLAY; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 97.]

ROBERT EARL OF LEICESTER'S HOSPITAL, WARWICK, BILL,

"to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the charity called the Hospital of Robert, Earl of Leicester, in Warwick, in the County of Warwick," presented by Lieut.-Colonel SPENDERCLAY; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 98.]

BRIGHTON (LONDON ROAD) CONGREGATIONAL CHAPEL CHARITIES BILL,

"to confirm a Scheme of the Charity Commissioners for the application or management of the charities consisting of the London Road Congregational Chapel and the net proceeds of sale of the trust property in Hanover Place, both in the Borough of Brighton, in the County of Sussex," presented by Lieut.-Colonel SPENDER-CLAY; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 99.]

DIVISIONS (STANDING ORDER 29).

Mr. HARDIE: When I came to this House, in 1922, I made myself acquainted with the Rules of the House, and in the copy of the Rules, dated 1921, I find, under Standing Order 29, that "A Member is not obliged to vote." This morning I got another copy of the Rules, and find that those words are still there. I want to know, for my information, whether at any time since 1922 that Rule has ever been altered or suspended in any way?

Mr. SPEAKER: Not that I am aware of. We have now passed the time for Questions, and I have called for the presentation of Bills. Perhaps the hon. Member will let me have his point in writing, and I will see if I can answer his question to-morrow.

STANDING ORDERS.

Resolution reported from the Select Committee:
That, in the case of the Southern Railway Bill, Petition for additional Provision, the Standing Orders ought to be dispensed with:—That the parties be permitted to insert their additional Provision if the Committee on the Bill think fit.

Resolution agreed to.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have agreed to—

Dunfermline and District Tramways (Extensions) Order Confirmation Bill, without Amendment.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Law with respect to the constitution and extension of county boroughs, and to amend the Local Government (Adjustments) Act, 1913." [Local Government (County Boroughs and Adjustments) Bill [Lords].

Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Law of Scotland relating to appeal in criminal cases tried on indictment." [Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Bill [Lords.]

Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide for the transfer of the water undertaking of the Connah's Quay Gas and Water Company, Limited, to the Urban District Council of Connah's Quay; to authorise the council to supply water in their district; and for other purposes." [Connah's Quay Urban District Council Water Bill [Lords.]

Also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower the Taf Fechan Water Supply Board to acquire lands; to extend the time for the construction of waterworks by the Board; and for other purposes." [Taf Fechan Water Supply Bill [Lords].

And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to provide a new constitution for Messrs. Hoare Trustees and to re-incorporate the same; and for other purposes." [Messrs. Hoare Trustees Bill [Lords.]

Connah's Quay Urban District Council Water Bill [Lords],

Taf Fechan Water Supply Bill [Lords],

Messrs. Hoare Trustees Bill [Lords],

Read the First time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS.

Considered in Committee. [Progress, 27th April.]

[Captain FITZROY in the Chair.]

Orders of the Day — BUDGET PROPOSALS.

AMENDMENT OF LAW.

Question again proposed,
That it is expedient to amend the Law relating to the National Debt, Customs, and Inland Revenue (including Excise), and to make further provision in connection with Finance.

Sir ROBERT HORNE: Everyone who has given attention to the facts of our financial situation will, be agreed that the task which has been set the Chancellor of the Exchequer this year is an extremely difficult one. He has been faced with a declining revenue in some of his most important sources of income, and with dwindling receipts from some of the duties now about to die. He is faced with an expenditure which is not only undiminished but seems to be undiminishable. In all the circumstances of the case I think the proposals which he has put before us show both courage and resource, and he has made the best of a very troublesome business. But I confess that my sympathy for him is not quite so active in my breast as it might have been in more normal circumstances, and I cannot help thinking that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has brought some of his troubles upon himself, while others have been imposed upon him by some of his colleagues.
The remarkable feature of the present financial situation, as I see it, is that, in spite of a promise, which I shall not exaggerate, of a vehement determination to cut down expenditure, the annual liabilities in our accounts seem to mount steadily from year to year. I would remind the Committee as we were informed by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, that whereas for the year 1924–25 the actual expenditure was £795,000,000, it rose last year—leaving out of account the Coal 'Subsidy—to a figure of £805,000,000, representing a rise during that period of between £9,000,000.
and £10,000,000. For the current year the Estimates show—again exclusive of the Coal Subsidy and of anything put to the Sinking Fund—a figure of £808,500,000, or an increase of £3,500,000 upon the expenditure of last year. Even this unhappy figure has only been reached after a series of what I may call makeshifts by which the contribution of the Exchequer to the social services of this country has been whittled away while the depressed industries of the country have been left to bear the burden of their disproportionate share. That is a record which even the most ardent supporters of the Government, of whom I am one—[HON MEMBERS: "Oh, Oh!"] —at any rate, the Government are the only people who have saved us from hon. Gentlemen opposite—can scarcely regard as satisfactory. I detected a tendency in the right hon. Gentleman's speech to excuse or explain that these increases in expenditure were clue to policy, that they were in some respect the outcome of Measures which the House of Commons had passed. Yesterday the Financial Secretary to the Treasury seemed to take the same line when he begged the House, in the interests of economy, not to ask the Government to pledge itself to commitments which would necessarily be expensive.
The question I wish to ask is, upon whom depends the policy which is accepted by the majority of this House, and whence emerge the Measures which we pass? I do not think that there is anything of any importance that originates in this House which does not come from the Government, and I know of no Measures which have been passed which have not been pressed upon us by Ministers. The Prime Minister not only has a more exuberant majority than is given to most people, but he has also got a majority in which there is not the slightest sign of sectionalism of any kind, and I hope there never will be. We are the most docile body of back benchers who ever sat on these seats. Accordingly I say that I do not think it is appropriate, if I may use an American expression, to "pass the buck" to us. The policy and expenditure of this House are the responsibility of the Government and the Government alone—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]—the Government after using its
necessary influence with the body of followers which it possesses in this House.
I do not wish to be harsh in any criticism I have to offer; I entirely sympathise with the difficulties in which my right hon. Friend finds himself. I know from very sad experience the great difficulty that any Chancellor has in cutting down expenditure, and I sympathise with the view he has often expressed that, while the word "economy" evokes great cheers, any attempt to exercise it excites opposition such as he could scarcely have contemplated. But there is a difference between cutting down expenditure and adding to it. I recognise the difficulty of cutting it down, but I would venture to say to the Government, that this is no time, in the present condition of our industries, for adding to expenditure or for adopting new policies which put fresh burdens upon the backs of people who can ill endure the burdens which to-day they have to bear.
I pass from that general observation upon the accounts of the year to some of the more particular details which are to be found in them, and I take, first of all, one of the factors which seems to me to be most significant. Members of the Committee will have observed that the Income Tax last year produced £2,500,000 less than the officials of the Inland Revenue estimated. That, I think, is a matter of concern. It is the first time that this has happened for, I think, something like 13 or 14 years, and it indicates what we all know, the depression from which our trade suffers at the present time. You get no consolation from the fact that the Super-tax has increased by £4,000,000, for this reason, that, as the Committee will remember, the Super-tax is based, not upon the figures of last year, but upon the figures of the year before. The estimate of Income Tax for the current year, I see from the accounts which have been submitted to us, is put at £4,000,000 less even than we received last year.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Churchill): £8,000,000.

Sir R. HORNE: I think it is £4,000,000 less than last year, and for Super-tax a similar figure.

Mr. CHURCHILL: The full reductions made in the tax last year are maturing this year.

Sir R. HORNE: I quite understand that; the full reduction comes into force this year. I perfectly realise that, but, at the same time, I think it is obvious that my right hon. Friend in estimating for his income it the current year has taken a rather gloomier view—he may correct me, but I estimate that he has taken rather a gloomier view of the position of trade than h did the previous year. For myself I think that that is the right course to pursue. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] I shall say at once why. While there is an obvious betterment in the case of some, of the lighter trades of this country, no one can look without anxiety at the position of the heavy industries of Great Britain at the present time. The figures for overseas trade for the first quarter of this year are, indeed, very disquieting, because they reveal an even worse situation than any we had to confront last year. If you take the revenues which have come from various industries in this country, as exhibited in the reports of the chief companies, you discover, so far as the iron and steel trade is concerned, that they are down this year by 30 per cent. If you look at the figures, again, of shipping, their revenues are down in the first quarter of this year by 11 per cent. as compared with what they were last year; and in the textile industry there is a deficit of 6 per cent. as compared with the revenues of last year.
All of these symptoms, I venture to say, create great anxiety, and certainly do not justify any budgeting for a very much higher level of revenue in the current year than we had in the last. But. in the midst of all this rather gloomy scene which I have been depicting with regard to some of the main industries of the country, there are some hopeful and happy features. Some trades have undoubtedly done well. The electrical industry has greatly improved its position in the course of the year, and the manufacture of silks and of motor cars undoubtedly has been forging steadily ahead. I have great sympathy with my right hon. Friend the late Chancellor of the Exchequer in this matter. I have been finding these happy features in the record of the year's business, but
to him they can afford nothing but gloom, and, indeed, his speech yesterday displayed the apprehension he felt from the fact that the silk trade and the motor car industry had been saddled anew with duties which he could only see setting towards a disaster. But I am sure we may congratulate ourselves upon the revenues that we have obtained from the Silk Duties, and also from the duty upon motor cars. What has been exhibited as the result of the working of these trades is that we have not only drawn a revenue front the duties upon these imports, we have not only increased the manufacture of these goods, but we have also been able to sell them at a price in this country which is rather lower than the price at which the same goods were sold last year.
I agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that it would be a mistake to draw too strong a deduction from these figures. I should not presume for a moment to found, on the particular experience of this year in connection with these industries, any great argument, for example, for a general system of tariffs; but I should like to say this, that the results are entirely in conformity with what is a very well known experience in the carrying on of any industry which involves the production of goods. It is that, the more of the goods you can produce, the cheaper you can sell them, and there is nothing that so much induces cheapness in the price of an article as the certainty of your market. There can be no question at all, whatever other argument there may be upon the fiscal aspect of this matter, that the motor trade in this country was enormously encouraged by the duties which were imposed, and which gave these people an opportunity of developing their industry, trusting to a particular market which enabled them to sell a large output. The same experience has been visible throughout the world, and no man who knew the facts would say that the extent to which mass production has gone, for example, in America, has not been enormously helped and assisted by the fact that the American manufacturer could depend upon his home market as an assured place in which he could sell his goods. I hope, accordingly, that this policy which has been adopted in recent times is not going to become the subject of political vicissitude, and be varied from
time to time according as one party or another is in office.
4.0 P.M
I am glad to think the Chancellor of the Exchequer has seen fit at the present time, not only to keep these duties in being, but also to impose upon commercial motor cars which are being imported into this country a similar duty to that which at present applies to what are called luxury cars. I know from my own experience at the Exchequer how difficult it is to discriminate between one motor vehicle and another, and I am perfectly certain that what is being done will not only bring us added revenue but will greatly facilitate all the operations in dealing with this particular duty. While I am on this topic I should like to put one point to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. In dealing with the motor-car taxation in this country, I hope attention may be paid to the result of our present methods. The reason I raised the point is that quite recently I had a conversation with a very important manufacturer of motor cars in America. He told me that although it helped them in their competition with us it was a point which he could not help disclosing, that our particular system of taxing our motor cars was a great impediment to the sale of our motor cars overseas, and gave American manufacturers an enormous advantage in the export markets as compared with any which we enjoy.
His explanation was this: "You put your licence duty upon the power of the ear. The more power it has the more the car has to pay. The result is that all your manufacturers try by every means in their power to manufacture a car which will have to endure the least taxation. That is all very well for your own country, but immediately you try to export that car to Australia it does not suit the Australian market. The American car is immensely more suitable. It has higher power, and it gives the results which they want. The effect is that in markets like Australia, where you have an enormous advantage because there is a preference given to you against us, you do not succeed against us, and your export is miserable compared with ours." I heard the same story the other day from Ceylon, and I would venture to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman
should take into consideration in the course of the next year whether some new method of taxing our motor cars could not he adopted, which would not put us under these disadvantages in the export markets which we very much require. It is perfectly obvious that as people lay down their business a long time in advance you would require to give early notice of any change which you proposed to make. Therefore, I venture to hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to give early consideration to what I regard as a very important point in regard to our export trade.
I leave these matters to turn to some which probably are somewhat more debatable. It is perfectly plain, in so far as the Budget is concerned, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going co meet with opposition on two particular parts of his policy, one the use he is going to make of the Road Fund and the returns from the Motor Licence Duties, and the other the Betting Duty. I shall accordingly take them in that order. With regard to the Road Fund, I should like to say at once that I give the Chancellor of the Exchequer my most hearty support. Let us consider for a moment the principle which is involved. It is perfectly true that in 1921 the Government, made an arrangement by which there was to be applied to the roads all the revenue which was obtained from the Motor Licence Duties. But is it to be said by anybody that that is a sacrosanct arrangement, and can never be altered? Let me suppose that the number of motor cars in this country increased as rapidly as they have done in America and that the revenues became ebullient as compared with their present level. Has Parliament tied its hands so that it is never going to be able to deal with them?
If I am right in saying that there is no principle involved except the right of Parliament to do as it chooses in the long run, then the only question becomes one of degree. Have the roads available an amount which is more than is necessary. That is a question of practical knowledge. I should say, looking at the Fund which has been piled up, that it is perfectly obvious that there is more being provided from these duties than is
actually required for consumption upon the roads. [HON. MEMBERS: "No"!] I have been in many countries in very recent times, and I venture to say that there is no country whose roads are as good as ours at the present time. It is perfectly evident that there is no lack of expenditure upon the roads at present, and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not erring upon the side of acquisitiveness in taking the modest which he proposes to take from the Road Fund and these Motor-car Duties, and applying it to the general revenues of the State. That argument might be accepted, and it might still he said that it is petty larceny to raid the accumulation of the Road Fund. I have no sympathy with that argument either. When I look Lack upon my own experience at the Exchequer, and what I had to do in the matter of roads, I am perfectly clear that the roads have benefited far more from the Exchequer than the Exchequer is going to take back at the present time.
Let me remind the Committee of one or two facts. In the year 1920, the Exchequer made a capital grant of £8,000,000 to the roads. That is more than the Chancellor of the Exchequer now proposes to take back. In the year 1921, at the time when this new arrangement with regard to the application of the Motorcar Duties was made, the Exchequer was still supplying to the roads a fund which amounted roughly from 11,250,000 to £1,500,000. That was in the days when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) was at the Treasury. I am sorry to see he is not here at the moment. In his day he had already talked of rearranging that matter so as to take back that particular grant and merge it into some other arrangement. Would it have been unconscionable at the time when the motor revenues were devoted to the roads, in 1921, if the Exchequer had said, "Our grants will now cease." It would in my opinion have beer the proper thing to do. But since that period £7,000,000 more has been contributed by the Exchequer for the upkeep of the roads. £1,000,000 was given not long ago for the arterial road from London to the South Coast, and to my knowledge £2,000,000 has been given by the Exchequer to the roads during the last year or so under Unemployment Schemes. In
all, £18,000,000 has been provided by the Exchequer for the roads when already there was plenty of money in the Fund to spend upon them. I refuse to have my withers wrung by any sad tale about robbing the Road Fund when I find what is actually being done by the Treasury in the upkeep of the roads, which are better than any others in the world.
I pass from that question to the Betting Duty, and recognise at once that there are special considerations when you deal with a. matter of public morals. I confess that I have become somewhat confused in the differing logics of the moralists who deal with this topic, and, for example, with the drink traffic. I find that the same people who tell you that if you reduce the duty on beer you will enormously increase its consumption also, tell you that if you put a tax on betting you will enormously increase the amount of betting that goes on. The same tax which damps the enthusiasm of the tippler would appear to excite the ardour of the gambler. Sometimes the argument goes further. You find people who would shut up brewery because people abuse the beer that comes from it, whereas they have no such feelings with regard to the shutting up of racecourses, although peon le use racecourses for betting. For my part, I believe—and I think I shall be supported by all social workers who have experience in these matters—that there is or, the whole more distress and misery caused in this country at the present time by excessive betting than there is by the abuse of drink.
If that be true, what are we to do about it? I appreciate the view of people who say, "let us put it down altogether," but they do not try to do so. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) yesterday said—and I agree with him—that A would be impossible at the present time to eradicate betting in this country. If that be so, what is our practical duty 7 I see no reason why we should not do everything we can to check it, and, if taxation is supposed to check the consumption of drink, I should imagine it would equally check the amount of betting. [Interruption.] Of course, you get a quite different angle of vision according to whether you own a brewery or a racing stud. For my part, I am of
the supreme conviction that the taxation of betting will lead to its reduction. It is perfectly obvious, if you are going to shorten the odds, which would be a necessary result of this taxation on betting, the bet is going to be less attractive to the man backing any particular horse, and therefore I expect to see, I do not say any tremendous, but a considerable reduction.
I am much more in sympathy with those who point out the difficulty which is created by leaving street betting untouched. I think that is a practical point, and it remains either for the Legislature, if further legislation be necessary, to deal with that evil, or for the police, under the directions of the Administration, to see that this illegal betting which goes on is restricted in every way possible. In the meantime, we have to recognise, if we are not hypocrites, that betting is rife in this country. We have to recognise that our newspapers, whatever be their particular attitude to life or to politics, take advantage of the horse racing that goes on to the extent of printing largely for the consumption of their readers all the odds and all the results of all the races. We have also to admit that we have compromised ourselves in this matter by accepting for years Income Tax upon what we say now is so evil that we ought, not to touch it. Being in that position, I, for one, have, no difficulty at all in coming to the practical conclusion that since this exists and since no one appears to be willing at present to come forward and say we ought to clear it out of the way, it is our duty as legislators, dealing with what is a most obvious luxury, to tax it to the full and get as much as we can out of it.
I come now to a matter which is a little more disappointing in my attitude towards the course of financial operations in the course of last year, and the programme for the succeeding years. The Government in its King's Speech of 1924 said, in language which I think I can recite from memory, "Economy is imperative if we are to regain our industrial and commercial prosperity." I ask the Government what have they done to implement what was at least the implication of that paragraph. I am not now going back to the question of economies. The point I wish rather to insist upon is their dealing with industry. Economy, according to the
paragraph, was necessary for a purpose. That was for the regaining of our industrial and commercial prosperity. I am sure every member of the Committee will agree that there is no object which is of more importance at present than that. Accordingly I hoped that industry in some way was to receive due notice and consideration, and that, having in view that the revenues of the country are mainly derived from industry, something would be done to encourage it by lightening their burdens. There appeared to be some controversy in the Committee yesterday as to the precise effect the weight of Income Tax had upon industry, and it would appear, to my surprise, that the last Chancellor of the Exchequer admitted that he thought it did not matter whether the Income Tax was high or low. I could scarcely believe that was a proposition he was prepared to maintain. If it were, I am certain that view would be denied by every Finance Minister in every country in which the Income Tax operates to-day. You have only to look at the experience of the United States of America, the richest country in the world and the most able to bear high imposts, where their deliberate policy has been to reduce their Income Tax in order to throw more money back into industry for the fructifying of trade. That, I should have thought, in our country more than any other, was an aim which we should keep in view.
But there are more important burdens upon industry to-day than Imperial taxation, bad as that is. The Income Tax, after all, only operates upon people who are making profits. But there are many imposts to-day which are acting upon people who are making losses, and these are much more grievous burdens on the whole than the general rim of taxation. If you take what are known as social services, the five important ones that affect industry, the Poor Rate, Workmen's Compensation, Old Age Pensions, Health Insurance and Unemployment Insurance, you will find that, whereas the aggregate of these burdens in 1911 was £30,000,000 in the year, by the year 1924 it had risen to the amazing figure of £169,000,000. I ask the Committee to consider for a moment how that burden is distributed. £37,000,000 of it comes from local rates Industry is the chief ratepayer for the
local rates. £48,000,000 of it comes from the Exchequer—to that also industry is a very important contributor—and for the rest there is directly imposed upon industry contributions for social services for each man employed thus creating a penalty upon employment. The employer bears £46,000,000, and the workman bears £30,000,000—£76,000,000 from the employer and the workman directly imposed and directly paid in respect of every man employed, whether you are making profits or losses.
I ask the Committee to consider, in a time like this, where is the severest pinch for industry, and where is the point at which you can most easily relieve it? I hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer was going to take the opportunity of doing something for industry in respect of relieving at least some of these last charges, but unfortunately when the opportunity came, industry was absolutely ignored. Last year I suggested that the Health Insurance Fund had reached such an amount and had created so many surpluses that it was no longer necessary to exact the full contribution required from the employer and the workman, and I can remember now the frigid gaze the Minister of Health turned on my suggestion, and the icy tones in which he exposed the moral turpitude of anyone who would venture to suggest an interference with the sacred system of Health Insurance. The opportunity recently came for relieving industry of part of this burden. The Chancellor of the Exchequer never thought of industry in the matter. He entirely ignored the claims of the industrialists, the employer and his workmen, and he took the opportunity of abbreviating the Government's contribution, doing nothing at all to relieve the burdens of the other contributors.
That really was not the more serious aspect of the situation. He also dealt with Unemployment Insurance. There there was an absolute statutory obligation that, as soon as the opportunity occurred, the employer's contribution was to be made the sane as that of the workman.

Mr. CHURCHILL: "May."

Sir R. HORNE: I do not wish to bandy words as to whether "may" is a word of obligation. At any rate, there was at least what I might represent as an under-standing—

Mr. CHURCHILL: Hear, hear.

Sir R. HORNE: —that the employer's contribution was to be reduced from 8d. to 7d., and made the same as that of the workman. But that understanding was entirely disregarded, and, instead of helping industry in the way I think I have shown industry can be most directly helped at present, it was the Exchequer that was relieved in respect of its particular burden. I do not deny that relief to the Exchequer percolates to industry, as to every other taxpayer, but it only affects industry in a minor degree compared with the effect you would produce either by relieving local rates or taking off some of these direct burdens which the social services of the country impose upon our industry. I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have some bowels of compassion for industry in the future. The experience of the last year has certainly not been comforting to the industrial people, and while I dislike very much to seem to use any words of warning—I am probably telling the Government what they know already—what is borne in upon me every day as I move about., is that a very large body of people in the country engaged in industry, and struggling against great odds and difficulties and vicissitudes to keep industry going, by which alone the Chancellor of the Exchequer can get his revenue, are beginning to look with dismay at their prospects, and are wondering when something is going to be done that will ease then burdens. I hope I have not put this matter too strongly, but it is obviously one that is vital to the very existence of the country.
I cannot long remain in conflict with my right hon. Friend—I have never been able to—and now I should like to finish by tendering my gratitude in respect of one matter in his proposals which I think of paramount importance. He has indicated that not merely does he intend to keep in being all the Preferences we at present give to oar Dominions and Dependencies, but he intends to create confidence in their minds with regard to the future by putting forward a tract of time in which they will be assured of them:: markets in our country. Confidence over a period of time is one of the greatest factors of success. It creates enterprise and encourages confidence.
I am glad lie makes these proposals for many reasons. There are some people who think that to stalk of the Empire in any shape or form, either in connection with Preference or otherwise, is to use the language of the Jingo. To-day I am willing to leave aside, although one will never cease to remember, that without the assistance of the soldiers who came to us from the Dominions and Dependencies, we should have lost the War before America ever began to be interested. I am willing also to leave out of account, although I do not think any of us will ever forget, that proportionately as many men lost their lives from our Dominions and Dependencies as from within our own shores, men to whom in camp and forest, far away, and on lonely sheep tracks, the sound of the trumpet of war might have passed as too remote for observance, but who yet came thousands of miles across the seas to stand by us and to fight with us in the greatest conflict in human history. But to-day I am not on that note.
I wish to put before the Committee the purely sordid aspect of our Imperial relations. What is the record of our trade during the last 50 years? To anybody who takes the trouble to read it, it is that, whereas we had an immense export to foreign countries during the last half of the last century, it teas being steadily depleted, and while the proportion of our exports to foreign countries was going down, we were saved by the proportion of our exports to our Dominions and Colonies increasing. Today 42 per cent. of our exports go to our Dominions. If we reckon it in what matters most to us, manufactured goods, the percentage is even greater. A country like Australia, with 6,500,000 people, is our second biggest customer in the world; I do not mean per head of the population, but absolutely. Australia, with 6,500,000 people, takes more of our exports to-day than the 110,000,000 people in America, the 65,000,000 people in Germany or the 45,000,000 people in France. Our export trade to-day with Australia is between £50,000,000 and £60,000,000.
How do we keep that trade? It would be a great mistake to suggest that we keep it absolutely on our own merits. We only keep it—and everyone who knows Australian trade is aware of the fact—by reason of our Prefer-
ences. Without those Preferences, this country would be in far more dire straits than it is. What are we doing to keep that trade? The sentiment has held very well, but it is being subjected to constant pressure. Anyone who has recently been in touch with citizens from our Dominions or from different parts of the world knows that very insistent efforts are being made by other countries to bring some of our biggest Dominions into their commercial ambit, and, having regard to the terms which are being offered, it sometimes amazes me that they reject them. We cannot afford to sit by and do nothing to encourage our trade with the Dominions. Our future lies with these young communities in the great spaces of our Dominions, living in conditions of promise and of hope. Our destiny lies with the Empire, and happy is he who, like my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has the opportunity, the vision, the desire and the determination to interweave the threads of our fortunes so closely together that never can they be severed.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has spoken out of the plenitude of his industrial and departmental experience. It has been obvious throughout his speech that he has viewed the present Budget not only from the point of view of a member of the Conservative party, but also from that of a trader who is conscious of the trials and difficulties of industry at the present time. Having taken a complete survey of the Budget, the right hon. Gentleman has practically only two things to praise—the Preference Duties and the Betting Tax. [HON. MEMBERS: "The Road Fund proposals!"] Yes, and the proposals respecting the Road Fund.

Sir R. HORNE: Those are the only topics with which I had time to deal. I did not propose to deal with every topic in the Budget.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I do not wish to emphasise the right hon. Gentleman's approval of the Budget. What I want to do is to point out how critical he is of its main characteristics. One of the points raised by my right hon. and learned Friend had reference to the burdens borne by industry for Unemployment and National Health Insurance, and he made a complaint, in which I feel sure he had
the sympathy of a large part of the House, that whereas he was not allowed to make a suggestion last year, except under the charge of moral turpitude, a right hon. Gentleman on the Front Government Bench may do it amid the plaudits of his supporters. Is it not a pity that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was not here 10 days ago? One man may steal a horse, while another may not look over the hedge. I regret to find the right hon. and learned Gentleman under such a severe disability. I do not say that he was right last year, but I say that if the Government are wrong this year so was he last year. He complains of the burdens which industry has to bear in rates and there, to a large extent, I have sympathy with him. It is possible for industrial concerns to reduce the amount of Income Tax they have to pay by a mere diminution of their prosperity, but the burden of rates falls on them no matter what may happen.
Last year, when we were discussing one of the proposals for social service which was devised on a national scale, some of us declared that the burden ought to be borne by the nation as a whole, and not by the industries in proportion to the number of persons they employed. Instance after instance was given to the House in Committee of the burden thrown upon industry by these new proposals. I do not remember the right hon. Gentleman voting against the method which the Government adopted for raising funds f Dr widows' pensions. It was quite right that the pensions should have been provided, but I still hold the view that it would have been far better for the industries concerned and for the general prosperity of the country if they had been provided on a national basis and not on a purely trade basis.
In one point made by the right hon. Gentleman he looks at only one aspect of the burden thrown upon industry. I think he was approximately correct in saying that nowadays for social services our trades have to bear a load of about £169,000,000 per annum. That is certainly a large amount to be carried by waning industry or by those whose prosperity is subject to very narrow margins. Is he quite sure that the £169,000,000 was lost to the trade of the country? That £169,000,000 has been distributed amongst the great mass of the
people, and the great mass of the people are the customers in our home trade. When we turn to the survey made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year, and again this year, we find that the only section of our trade which is prospering at the present time is our home trade. I have no doubt that the £169,000,000 distributed amongst the poorest people in the country, and spent upon the main necessities of life, has had something to do with contributing towards the prosperity of our home trade.
The right hon. Gentleman expressed approval of taxes which have been imposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year and are to be either re-enacted this year or to be left where they were. He hoped that they would net be subject to the vicissitudes of different administrations. The constitutional doctrine on this point is quite clear. No Parliament can bind its successor, and no Government can bind its successor. Whenever we are dealing with matters of such high controversy as Import Duties or Preference Duties, it is quite clear that from time to time Parliament will express different views. Anyone who relies on the permanence of Duties which depend on the swaying to or fro of the fiscal views of great majorities, is depending upon a broken reed. If the Labour Government came into power to-morrow, it is quite certain from the pledges given from the Opposition Front Bench, not only this week but on previous occasions, that they would decline to pledge themselves to a 10 years' period for Imperial Preference. I am not sure that the Government to-day are justified in adhering to the 10 years' period. The head of the Government gave assurances which could not be more definitely stated than they were in Debate in this House. Although one statement was quoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) yesterday, I should like to supplement it with an even more definite statement made by the Prime Minister when he introduced the Safeguarding of Industries Bill in 1921. He said then that he thought three years was too short a period for the duties, and he admitted that five years was an arbitrary term. He went on to say:
I think myself, for the purpose in hand to regard to these key industries, 10 years would be much too long…. I think in
specifying five years we have gone to the limit of what the industries may reasonably expect."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 31st May, 1921; col. 877, Vol. 142.]
In suggesting that the Government should go to 10 years the right hon. Gentleman not for the first time in his history, I fear, finds himself in disagreement with the Prime Minister, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer ignores the undertaking given by the Prime Minister in 1021. He asked for a, 10 years certainty. There can be no certainty in taxation. No one is better aware of that fact than those two right hon. Gentlemen, one of whom has been at the Exchequer and the other who is now there. It is just as well that in, future years there should be no charges of breach of faith on this matter, seeing that men in responsible positions have made it quite clear, as the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) did yesterday, that in no circumstances will he pledge himself to a 10 years period.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman made a point with regard to the increased protection given to commercial cars. Of all the protective duties suggested by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer this is the one least justified by the state of the trade. The import of commercial cars has been far smaller in proportion than the import of pleasure cars, while the export of commercial cars from this country has been on a larger scale than the export of commercial ears from any other country in the world. There has been no case made out for treating commercial cars in the way proposed in the Budget. When the right hon. and learned Member is talking of the burden thrown upon industry, let him remember that there are far more industries users of commercial cars than makers of commercial cars. If there is to be an artificial rise in the price of commercial cars, not only the textile trades, but the metal trades, the distributive trades and almost every industry in this country will have to pay more for a portion of their raw material.
I will now turn to one subject which the right hon. Gentleman has discussed, which is certainly novel in our discussions—I mean the Betting Duty. It is easy to understand the feeling of a great many hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in regard to this tax if they take a rapid and purely superficial view of
the problem into which they are now plunging. It sounds very convincing and, indeed, almost morally correct to support a duty upon betting if, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, it is likely to result in a diminution in betting in this country. Has the right hon. Gentleman thought out the method by which it is to be done? The Chancellor of the Exchequer has his own way of dealing with this subject. He is going to deal with the credit bookmaker. He is going to ask that the bookmaker on the racecourse and elsewhere shall be certificated; and he will have to pay £10 for his licence. There is also to be a register of licensed premises. But all street betting, all the house-to-house betting, all the betting which is organised and carried on in works and other illegal places, is to go scot-free. Club betting is to be entirely untouched. This is not a question of the man who bets in large stakes and the man who bets in small stakes; it is not a question of the rich man and the poor man; this is a matter which concerns the whole community. There is not a single class of society which does not suffer in some degree from the gambling spirit; it is inherent in almost everyone. But that is no reason why we should adopt means which will undoubtedly lead not to a diminution of betting but to an increase of betting in its least legalised form in a Measure for the raising of revenue.
It is not for nothing that the State took the view that it should do everything in its power to diminish the amount of gambling in this country. I am sure there is no section in this House, certainly no member of the present Government, who would like to sweep away the Gaming Laws with one stroke of the pen, and yet, from the speeches which have been made in favour of the Betting Duty it would appear that betting is so prevalent that we all of us have our little flutter. If all this be true, why have the Gaming Laws on the Statute Book at all? The method adopted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this matter will for the first time license the bookmaking industry. It will for the first time license the premises from which it is to be conducted. It will create an interest. We have enough trouble already in dealing with interests without
wishing to add another. And the Chancellor of the Exchequer is doing all this with the object of raising £6,000,000 in a full year. Is he likely—

Sir HENRY CAUTLEY: It is not a proposition to license an office; it is a, proposal to license the man.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: Well let us see about that. I must refer the hon. and learned Member to Resolution No. 3, and to paragraph (3) of that Resolution, which says:
On a certificate to he taken out annually in respect of the entry or premises to be used or kept by a bookmaker for the purposes of his business a duty of ten pounds.
How on earth is he going to collect this tax unless there is a register of these licensed premises? Is the hon. and learned Member in favour of that? I have read carefully through the Report of the Committee, and I do not gather that he was in favour of that system. No, the hon. and learned Member was not in favour of the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was in favour of the taxing of all betting—street betting, works betting, club betting—the whole thing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says, "No, I am not going to do that." He has a higher moral code than the hon. and learned Member. He says, "I will not touch this illegal betting." The hon. and learned Member would have done so; he led the way two or three years ago in the Committee—

Sir H. CAUTLEY: But we expressly prohibited any vested interest in the office.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: Once a bookmaker is registered, you cannot get away from the registration of the office, and long after a bookmaker has ceased to have mental agility sufficient to carry on his business he is able to employ agents and conduct his business in a far wider area than a mere office. But how is the Chancellor of the Exchequer going to collect this £6,000,000? Is he going to collect it easily? He is dealing with about the slipperiest customers one can find. I know that a very large number of turf agents conduct their business just as honestly as any banker, but anybody who has any experience of racecourses and sees what goes on, anybody who watches the sort of organised betting that
is to be found, not only in the industrial districts, is well aware of the fact that bookmakers are not so simple-minded, and so willing to pay taxes as all that. He will find them just as elusive as the Super-taxpayers, or the millionaire who transfers his domicile to Jersey. I am not at all sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not have to take complete control of the detailed management of the General Post Office if he is to collect I is duty, for a large amount of this book-Flaking business may perchance be conducted in future from Jersey.
If he is to get his revenue, he will have to watch, not only the highly respectable commission agents, those who are well known to the public and to the Press, but he will have to deal with thousands of others who are to be found on and around the racecourses who conduct their business just on the verge of illegality. He will not find it easy to keep track of every transaction that is conducted. Does he imagine that in the few minutes before a race a busy bookmaker is going to lick innumerable stamps and fill in the forms that are to be required by the Customs and Excise. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, no doubt, has a much wider experience of racecourses than I have. There is nothing I enjoy more than to see the beautiful animals galloping past, and I have never found it necessary to add to my pleasure by betting heavily on the result of a race. When I go to these places, I go with my eyes open, and I take care to keep my pockets closed, but does any observer believe for a moment that the right hon. Gentleman is going to find it easy to collect his revenue without having almost as many policemen on the ground as there will be bookies? I do not know who the right hon. Gentleman has been conferring with in getting ready for this Betting Duty. A large number of people seem to have known a good deal about it before the Chancellor of the Exchequer said anything at all in the House of Commons. He is a very sanguine man if he thinks he is going to get £6,000,000 a year by an easy collection of this tax. If he does get it, if he does tax the most legalised form of betting, if he does place an impost on it, he leaves all the rest, all the illegal betting, alone. What is going to be the effect of that? I know it is easy to exaggerate the trans-
fer of betting from these legalised places and legalised persons into the street, but the tendency will be undoubtedly all that way, and those who do betting on the street will be able to give backers better terms.

Sir H. CAUTLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how he can give better terms?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: He will not have to pay a license or duty.

Sir H. CAUTLEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that they all pay on starting prices?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: We are not quite so simple as that. The hon. and learned Gentleman has apparently forgotten the ante-past betting. If he knew anything about the way in which betting is organised in large parts of the industrial districts of this country he would know that it is not restricted to one type. He will find that any impost which is placed on legalised "bookies" and is not placed on illegal bookmaking will undoubtedly go to the advantage of those who are scot-free of the tax. According to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, this £6,000,000 is going to be paid by the bookmaking fraternity without their knowing they have paid it. They will pass on the impost to those who are backers. If as the Chancellor of the Exchequer anticipates it is going to be passed on, it only means that backers who have dealings with legalised bookmakers will be placed at a great disadvantage compared with those who deal with unlicensed bookies. The right hon. Gentleman, in dealing with this matter, and other hon. Gentlemen too, are quite entitled to say that they will examine this question, not only from the fiscal but from the moral point of view. I do not see why one should not bring moral considerations into a discussion of this matter in the House of Commons. Whether betting is moral or immoral, every man must judge for himself; but there is not a single individual who does not know that betting, conducted as it is on its present scale, has a demoralising effect in every grade of society. I need not argue the ethical side of it at all. We know the facts. The hon. and learned Member who was Chairman of the Committee which sat upstairs refers to it in
his own Report, and there are pages in which that Committee describes the evil as it exists on its present scale amongst men, women and children. Why should we ignore that? Anything that will establish more firmly the business of betting in this country, this demoralising influence, ought not to be supported by any Government which devotes itself as does the present Government, to social causes. On the other hand it should do everything to diminish the volume of betting and not establish the evil more firmly by registration and licence.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Taxation.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: If the right hon. Gentleman can tell us how he is going, by taxation, to put a stop to street betting and works betting, I hope he will do so at once. The Resolution on the Paper will do nothing to stop any one of these evils. I turn now to the larger aspect of the financial proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The first comment I would make in regard to his new taxes and the results we have seen during the past year is that his anticipations of a year ago have not been reached. His new import duties on films, clocks and watches, motor-cars, musical instruments, by which he thought he was going to get £1,500,000 have realised just over £1,000,000—£1,081,000. On silk and artificial silk he expected to collect £3,500,000. He has only got £3,190,000. Indeed, all his new taxes last year failed to reach his estimate.

Mr. CHURCHILL: Why?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: Because they were badly devised. The right hon. Gentleman did not realise that when he puts on a tax it must diminish the volume of trade. He did not make enough allowance for that.

Mr. CHURCHILL: The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well the gigantic outbreak of dumping which took place between the announcement of the duties and the passage of the Finance Bill.

5.0 P.M

Mr. RUNCIMAN: That excuse will really not hold water. It did not take long to get the Finance Bill through this House, and the right hon. Gentleman
knew from day to day how much dumping was going on. He gave us a revised figure of £3,470,000 after he knew about all this dumping. The right hon. Gentleman had the official information—

Mr. CHURCHILL: The final figure was not known till after the result of the dumping. The revised figure referred to really embodied only the result, of concessions made during the Debate in this House on the Silk Duty.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: Even if that be so, I cannot understand the use of the revised figure, or why it was placed before the right hon. Gentleman by his officials. The Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot at all make the Estimates conform strictly to the facts.

Mr. CHURCHILL: After the revised figure was given to the House, I stated, in answer to a question, that we had sustained a loss, at first estimated at between £1,000,000 and £1,500,000, as a result of the heavy dumping which had taken place. It is quite true in the upshot the additional loss has not been realised, because the duties have been more productive than I hoped at the time.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: My right hon. Friend appears to have been wrung in the original Estimate and in the revised Estimate. However, I do not wish to press the right hon. Gentleman on a matter of £3,000 or £300,000 when we are dealing with millions. Let us turn to those other sources from which he will draw his revenue, and we shall see that a great deal of the revenue is fading away. The right hon. Gentleman opposite has drawn attention to that. Special receipts are likely to become smaller and smaller. The Excess Profits Duty is quite certain to bring in less and less, and I am not surprised that the Chancellar of the Exchequer is now bringing it to an end, because there have been so many claims made for refund in connection with the Excess Profits Duty that in the next two or three years it might quite possibly be found that the sums that are paid out were greater than that which had been collected. Of course, the Corporation Profits Tax disappears at the same time. How, then, is the right hon. Gentleman going to square his accounts? He has
given us figures as to what he expects to get in various directions. As it stands at present, £7,000,000 appears to be the total amount that he may expect to get from the Road Fund. Then there is £4,000,000 from France. Whether this will be repeated next year or not remains to be seen. There is £5,500,000 through shortening the brewers' credit. He may get this or something like it again next year, but he will not get it in the following year, because the poor fellows are surely entitled to one month's credit. Motor vehicles are going to bring £1,500,000; extra Customs £750,000, and the Betting Duty £1,500,000. Then there is his dealings with the old Sinking Fund. The new Sinking Fund which is actually £46,000,000 is going to he made up to £50,000,000 by the addition of the £4,000,000 from the old to the new Sinking Fund.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I am endeavouring to maintain a uniform payment for debt redemption of £50,000,000 a year. Last year we paid £36,000,000, and, in addition, there was paid off £4,000,000 by means of the old Sinking Fund.

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I quite recognise that. These various operations will have very considerable effect upon our national credit. I have heard of the New Sinking Fund being raided many a time, but I never heard of a Chancellor of the Exchequer in our generation who considered the old Sinking Fund to be fair game. Had the right hon. Gentleman left the old Sinking Fund as it was, it is quite certain that we should have had redeemed just as much debt as under the arrangement he has proposed.
As to the accounts which have been given to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the matter depends upon almost one thing. The main fact that really dominates the financial situation is the outcome of the crisis in the coal trade. I am not going into how the right hon. Gentleman is going to deal with the general situation in the coming years. I do not propose to discuss the Gold Standard nor do I wish to go into the Death Duties. Nor will I discuss the coal situation, but, in making a survey of our financial obligations, I think we must keep in view the effect of three possible ways in which it may affect the finances in the coming year.
In the first place, there is the possibility of nothing having to be paid by
way of subsidy. All that will happen in that respect will be to wind up the subsidy on 30th May without increasing the charge in the year 1926–7. There is the second possibility—I only mention it as a possibility and as purely hypothetical —of a subsidy having to be made in order to ease the bump. The next alternative is the possibility of making loans, owing to certain conditions of the coal trade, over a period of 10 years, and that to some extent would be an absorption of the national credit. The fourth possibility, from which we all desire to be saved, is a stoppage in the coal trade. That would upset the accounts of the year perhaps more than any of the other matters I have mentioned. I think we are justified in saying that the financial situation is dominated by what may happen in the next few days in negotiations over coal.
Let me turn to a matter which is much less delicate. Last night we heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Norwich (Mr. Hilton Young) a statement as to our national credit, which was of very great interest, although, I think, limited in its accuracy by the claims which he put forward on behalf of the bourgeoisie, and in which he suggested that the middle classes were bearing so much of the financial burdens of the country. What, however, he had to say on the subject of national credit was of great value, for the right hon. Gentleman takes a very wide and very detached view of our national affairs. It is quite clear from his speech as to what he thought of the credit of the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) declared yesterday that the credit of the United Kingdom at the present time was rather worse than the City of Glasgow. It is a very remarkable fact that Glasgow succeeded in floating its loan yesterday, the whole of it has been over subscribed, and I doubt whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer could float any of his Trade Facilities loans, which are guaranteed by the State on a similar basis.
There is one slight deduction that must be made in the case of Glasgow Corporation; it paid the expenses of issue. The, right hon. Gentleman drew attention to the fact that since the War we had redeemed in this country £700,000,000 of
floating debt. How has that been done? It has been done entirely out of the sale of surplus War Stock. The whole of that money derived from the sale of surplus War Stock ought not to have been used for the redemption of the debt. What has been spent out of the loans which we floated on the credit of the United Kingdom obviously ought to have been returned from sales to the category from which it was originally drawn.

Sir R. HORNE: But the right hon. Gentleman will possibly agree that many of the purposes to which the proceeds of war stores were devoted were in meeting capital obligations which arose out of the War, and ought to have been dealt with in the special manner described?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: Oh, yes; But I mention that in passing. It is not now material. The problem which now faces the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not only to deal with the situation of this year, but, during the next 2½ years, to deal with the redemption or the funding of no less than £884,000,000 of short-dated debt. That is a very grave and difficult problem. How he is going to deal with it he is not going to discuss at the present time, but it must be a matter of continual concern to him. The only success he will get out of refunding will obviously come from the raising of the national credit. After all, the funding operations, whenever they begin, will depend very largely upon the simple law of supply and demand. If there is to be a larger supply of Government debt available for marketing than there is demand from the market for investment, it is quite obvious that the funding operations will not be successful.
There is only one way, so far as I know, in which it will be possible to keep down the supply of Government debt which will he sold in the markets below the level of the capital available for the purpose, and that is by the continual operation of the Sinking Fund, and by keeping expenditure far below the revenue point. The holders of this short-dated stock are not all going to ask for its redemption. And there are very good reasons why there should be a good deal of short-dated stock in the market. It is absolutely essential until there is a far greater
volume of commercial bills that short-dated stock should be available. There is a continuous demand for this short-dated stock by British and foreign institutions, who need it for commercial or financial operations. The right hon. Gentleman will find it far easier to deal with the balance which he funds if he has created the impression in the rest of the world that we are paying off our debt rapidly, that we are not relaxing our efforts, that we are not adopting any makeshift expedients—I think "makeshift" was the word used by the right hon. Member for Hillhead—for making both ends meet. If he can create that impression, he will certainly do something to raise the chedit of the United Kingdom.
Unfortunately, under the right hon. Gentleman our expenditure has gone up steadily. In the figures which he quoted the right hon. Member for Hillhead pointed out how continuous this rise was That is certainly true. Our estimated expenditure, leaving coal out of account altogether, is higher now than it was last year or the year before. Our total tax revenue is higher this year than last, and it was higher last year than the year before. That tendency is all against the raising of the national credit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer asks, How could he have done otherwise? He could have dispensed with some of the subsidies that he has distributed. He might have postponed or cancelled or refused the grants made to Northern Ireland, as they were refused by his predecessor. He might have cut down the fighting Services to what they were when the last Conservative Administration was in power. He would have gained £11,000,000 out of that. If he had put his foot down firmly enough and refused any of these grants, sporadic or temporary, however hardly they were pressed on him by his colleagues or from Ireland, he would not have been in the difficulties in which he now finds himself at the close of the financial year. He would have had £14,000,000 at least in hand under those headings alone.
What he might have done in other directions is a matter merely for speculation, but one thing we may certainly say, and that is that the only means the right hon. Gentleman has for restoring our national credit is by a further reduction in expenditure, putting a stop to auto-
matic increases, "stemming the tide," as he sometimes calls it, refusing the requests made to him by his colleagues and from outside, and in doing, as he was accused of doing this afternoon, "passing the buck" to his followers behind. They will always support him, whatever he proposes. The right hon. Member for Hillhead would back him whatever financial sins he committed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is far mere afraid of the parties opposite than of the heterodox financiers on his own side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman will have to resist all the wiles of his followers as well as of his colleagues. It is high or low expenditure which makes or mars national credit. It is of far more importance to this country that we should now be able to disclose our financial strength than that we should disclose our military strength. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has it in his power. If he would carry through to the end the principles with which he started and in which he has an inherited interest—the result of long training in a better school—he would be able to restore our national credit, but only by adhering strictly to those simple rules of national as well as of personal finance.

Mr. LEES-SMITH: The right hon. Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne) delivered a speech which we on the Labour Benches listened to with considerable surprise and considerable interest, and. as far as a large part of it was concerned, with complete approval. The right hon. Gentleman repeated the arguments which had been used from these Benches for days and nights during the Debates on the Economy Bill. We accept his arguments, hut we draw from them different conclusions, and conclusions which, as I shall try to show, are a far more logical development of his own arguments than those with which he seemed to be content. In dealing with this Budget, we of the Labour party cannot regard it as an isolated fact. We see that it is part of a general financial policy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated in his Budget speech that he was looking forward not only to this year but to next year, and even the year after. The general financial scheme of which this Budget is part, began with the last Budget, and has been followed up in this House by a series of Bills which have
occupied us for months, and which we of the Labour party have fought at every stage. I wish, then, to say a few words as to what is behind all these details of taxation, and what is the essential difference in principle between the financial results at which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is aiming and the financial doctrines which we hold.
Broadly and briefly, we believe that the result of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's finance, the result of the last Budget, the result of the Budget which he is evidently projecting, from the remarks which he made on Monday with regard to a prospective increase of resources of £23,000,000—we believe that the result is to be a vast decrease in direct taxation paid by the wealthier section of the State at the expense of the homes and the health and the standard of life which our people have, up to the present, secured. This policy began in the last Budget. In that Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer had a surplus of about £40,000,000. He used all his manipulations of Income Tax and Super-tax and Death Duties, he spent £32,000,000 in relief of the direct taxation paid by the most fortunate classes in the country. I noticed that the right hon. Member for Hillhead seemed to think that that was not enough, and that still we have left a too heavy burden upon industry. But the fact is that if the Chancellor had not spent this £32,000,000 in that way, there would have been no need for the increase in the local rates of which the right hon. Member for Hillhead complained. Further, there would have been no need for those extra burdens placed on the employers and the employed by the Insurance Acts, of which also the right hon. Member for Hillhead complained. There would have been no need for any new taxes; there would have been no need for these Budget taxes; there would have been no need for the Unemployment Insurance Act of last year, no need for the Economy Bill, and no need for any of the attacks upon the health and homes and education of the great masses of the people.
In the Debates on the Economy Bill we pointed out the harshness and the cruelty and the injustice of this financial plan which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is gradually unfolding. We cannot go over that
ground again, but in these Budget Debates we have an opportunity of pointing out that this plan is injurious and disastrous from a strictly financial and commercial and industrial point of view. The Chancellor diminishes direct taxation. It is quite clear that he proposes to continue the process. He diminishes direct taxation, but the money has to be made up from somewhere. From where is it coming? We see now that the first direction from which it is coming is the local rates. To that reference has been made. Let me give the actual results of what has been done from the White Papers which have been issued by the Government within the last two or three weeks. I have here the White Paper issued by the Ministry of Labour as to the effects of the Unemployment Insurance Act of last year. As a result of that. Act about 100,000 persons have been struck off unemployment benefit, and if we take into account their dependants, that means that at least 150,000 persons must have been directly impoverished as a result of that Act.
Then we have the White Paper from the Ministry of Health. What does that show? It shows that last June, before the Unemployment. Insurance Act came into operation, there were 350,000 insured persons receiving out-door relief. At the close of the last quarter after the Unemployment Insurance Act had been in operation for all these months, those 350,000 persons had increased to 500,000, which means that just about the number you would expect, about 150,000 persons, are directly impoverished by the Unemployment Insurance Act, that by the reduction of benefits 150,000 extra persons are thrown on to out-door relief, with all the indignity which that carries its train. What does it, mean? It means that the Income Tax is being reduced at the expense of a corresponding increase in the local rates. Exactly the same result is occurring as a consequence of the unemployment Clauses of the Economy Bill. Those Clauses diminish the amount which the Chancellor of the Exchequer pays to the Unemployment Fund. That increases to a higher level than would otherwise be the case the amount which has to be paid in contributions for unemployment insurance by the employers and the workers. Again, a mere transfer of burden, with
results which are more injurious than if the position had been left as the late Chancellor of the Exchequer left it.
Broadly, then, our criticism of this financial scheme is this: To lower continually the direct taxation paid by the well-paid section of the country, and—in order to do so—to increase local rates and insurance contributions, is not a real reduction of taxation. It is a fraudulent reduction of taxation and merely means that you are transferring the burden of direct taxation elsewhere in a way that is more injurious to the recovery of our industrial position than direct taxation itself. At this particular juncture, the peculiar nature of the industrial situation ought to dominate every Budget which the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces. The situation is peculiar for this reason. There is a great deal of unemployment and trade stagnation, and yet, taking the average, one penny in the Income Tax gives a good return. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself states that the consuming power of the country is satisfactory. What does it mean? The main fact of the situation is that the greater part of our unemployment and industrial depression is concentrated in a comparatively few essential industries, particularly industries which depend on the export markets—the heavy industries such as iron, steel, engineering and coal. That being the case, the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is so to frame his Budget as to give special assistance and nourishment to this group of industries which is struggling against the greatest difficulties.
If the Chancellor of the Exchequer wishes to do that, what policy ought he to pursue? Ask anyone who can speak for those trades, and they will all say that the one thing which they require and which will help them, is the possibility of reducing their standing charges so that they may compete on more even terms with their rivals It foreign markets. The Chancellor of the Exchequer reduces the Income Tax. That does not help these industries. They are not paying any Income Tax. It helps those huge sections who are living on debentures, and inherited wealth. It helps the whole bond-holding and interest-receiving class, but not the industries which want a reduction in their standing charges, for the simple reason that Income Tax does
not enter into standing charges, but is paid out of the profits which are left after the standing charges have been met. It is, therefore, of no assistance to the industries who at present have this special problem to face. On the other hand, the increase in rates and insurance contributions is a direct increase in standing charges. These increases have to be paid whether any profits are made or not. They have to be paid by the export trades even when those trades are making losses. They have to be paid out of the costs of production which exporters have to take into account when determining the price they can charge. Our objection, therefore, to the Chancellor's whole financial outlook—because this clearly dominates not only what he has done, but what he aims at doing—is that at this stage of our industrial problem he ought to give special assistance to those export trades which are struggling against special difficulties. He has not done so. All he has done is to increase their standing charges and increase their difficulties—and he has done this in order that he may give greater assistance to those sections of the State who are already enjoying the greatest share of the national wealth.
There is only one further point of a more technical character on which I would like to make some remarks. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has increased the Sinking Fund to £60,000,000, and he has stated that he intends to reduce it again next year to £50,000,000. We have always maintained that a Sinking Fund of £50,000,0000 is totally inadequate. It means that the National Debt will not be paid off for 150 years. It means, in practice, that the Government have abandoned in despair the problem. of dealing with the Debt at all. The answer given to that criticism for some years past has been that the Government ale going to deal with the National Debt by a process of conversion, by a process of lowering the rate of interest, so that tens of millions will be saved, and the present Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave figures which indicated that he looked forward to saving about £80,000,000 a year by reducing the rate of interest on the National Debt. We have now reached a position in which I think this subject of conversion should be examined in order to see what are the possibilities, and I
have here some figures which indicate the limits of the proposal.
The National Debt is, broadly, £7,500,000,000. Of that sum over £1,000,000,000 is debt to the United States, which cannot be converted and on which in any case we are only paying 3½per cent. Another £1,500,000,000 consists of Funding Loans, Victory Bonds, Conversion Loans, and long-dated securities which do not accrue until after 1960. Another £750,000,000 consists of Treasury Bills and other short-term securities to which the proposals of conversion do not apply. Taking these together, we get, out of the total of £7,500,000,000, a sum of about £3,500,000,000 to which conversion cannot be applied, and £4,000,000,000 represents the area within which all these proposals have, to operate. In present circumstances, considering that interest is going up and not down—considering that when the Prime Minister made these prophesies the Bank Rate was 3 per cent. and is now 5 per cent.—I think I make an optimistic assumption, when I assume that you might reduce the rate of interest on this £4,000,000,000 by one-half per cent. If you do that, you save £20,000,000 a year nominally, but you will not make an actual saving to that amount, because you will lose the Income Tax and Super-tax which the present recipients of that£20,000,000 are paying. That means a loss of at least £5,000,000, and the final result of all these conversion proposals, on the most optimistic assumption, is a saving of £15,000,000. The Prime Minister's £80,000,000 on examination becomes £15,000,000 —and this is in connection with the National Debt, the interest on which is £300,000,000 a year.

Sir PHILIP PILDITCH: When did the Prime Minister make this proposal, or offer the suggestion that there was likely to be a Sinking Fund of £80,000,000?

Mr. LEES-SMITH: In the Budget speech of 1923 the right hon. Gentleman spoke of a reduction of 1 per cent., and, as I have pointed out, instead of a reduction of 1 per cent. there has been an increase of 2 per cent.

Sir P. PILDITCH: A reduction of interest—not Sinking Fund.

Mr. LEES-SMITH: I was speaking of conversion, not of Sinking Fund. I was speaking of conversion and reduction of interest. Conversion is the alternative to our proposal for an enlarged Sinking Fund.

Sir P. PILDITCH: I understood the hon. Member to say "Sinking Fund."

Mr. LEES-SMITH: I may have said so, but I was dealing with reduction of interest, and the fact is that when you examine the situation you find our highest hopes of a saving in this way come to £15,000,000. That justifies me in saying that conversion is a myth and a fallacy—exploded, exposed and obsolete. The Sinking Fund will take 150 years, and the Government have no other alternative. They have, in fact, abandoned in despair the problem of the National Debt.

Sir FREDRIC WISE: It is very difficult to reply to the arguments of the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Lees-Smith). He seems to despise a saving of £15,000,000, even if the conversion could take place. If it is possible to get cheap money, you might be able to save more than £15,000,000 on your conversion. It is still more difficult to argue with the hon. Member when he refers to the Income Tax as he did. I understood him to say that any reduction in the Income Tax was almost fraudulent. If he considers a reduction of Income Tax in this way, surely he does not realise the importance of such reduction, not only to trade, but to people in this country generally. I remember his argument last year upon this point, and I remember asking him what happened to a reduction in the Income Tax. The answer is that it all goes back into trade and helps trade in one way or another. The people do not put the money into a stocking. I desire, however, to refer to what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) said yesterday. I agree with a great deal of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but when he hinted that there should be some measure of control on public credit, to my mind, his speech lost all its force. The right hon. Gentleman himself used, in reply to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the word "bunkum," and I think I may respectfully use the same word in reference to his suggested control of public credit.
I am sorry he is not in his place at present, because I should like to ask him if he remembers what occurred in connection with the Dawes Report? The Leader of the Opposition certainly signed that Report, and I have an idea that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley was also a signatory. In that case he did just the reverse of what he is now advocating. The Reichsbank was a part of the German Republic, and the effect of the Dawes Report was that it should be taken away from the control of the German Republic, and practically given to private enterprise. Surely he rather contradicts himself in hinting that public credit should be controlled. Now let me deal with the Budget. It has often been remarked that one of the most striking things of to-day compared with previous days is the complexity of the situation, and I feel that if there is any thing complex in this world it is the financial situation and problems. Last year's Budget brought in the return—and I think it a as an historic event—to the gold standard. I congratulate the Chancellor on the result up-to-date of the gold standard, and if I am in order, I should really like to congratulate the Governor and the Court of Directors of the Bank of England on the way they have managed the Bank's finance, which in many ways affects and regulates the national finance, during the course of the 12 months. They have shown financial statesmanship and great wisdom, and the country owes much gratitude to those Directors. In pre-War days very few people took any interest in gold except the cambists The exchange was almost unintelligible except to the arbitrage men, and the Bank Rate had more control than it has to-day.
The hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Gillett) referred last night, in an interesting speech, to the Bank Rate, but I am sure he will agree with me that the Bank Rate is not the weapon to-day that it was in pre-War days. If you take gold and exchange and the Bank Rate you will find they are all intertwined in the tangle of international debts. The tangle of international debts interferes with a great deal of the stability of Europe at the present time. As far as the gold standard in this country is concerned, you may say it is divided into two periods. There is in No. 1 period the
gold exchange standard, which started at the end of April, 1925, and went on to the end of December, and in that period you had a big influx of gold, chiefly from Holland and Russia. In the second period, from the 1st January this year, you had what I might call a gold sheltered standard, not the full gold standard, but a gold sheltered standard, in which there was a large efflux of gold between January and the present day. The chief import of gold that came into this country was from Russia to the extent of £2,400,000, but the efflux was greater than the amount which came in. Great statesmanship must be shown when the fusion of the Treasury and Bank of England notes takes place, and also the settlement of the fiduciary issue.
The right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) two clays ago criticised the gold standard, but one point we have to consider and remember is that practically the dollar bill is ceasing to exist, and the London bill is again taking its place. Britain has a great many claims on its gold. The two great claims in 1925 were one from India, which, if you take the exchange at 1s. 6d., bought £43,000,000 worth of gold, which was half the world's production, and the other point that one has to consider, is the external debt which we have, which can be paid in gold, as it is so difficult to get the goods into America to pay that debt owing to the Fordney Tariff.
May I appeal to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury as to the cost of running this country? The cost of running this country—and I must include the coal subvention—last year was £826,000,000, and this year it is to be £824,000,000. In pre-War clays it was about £200,000,000, and then it was big; we are a poorer nation to-day—at least, I consider that we are poorer, although I welcome the remarks made not only by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the day before yesterday but also by the right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden) yesterday, to the effect that there was more wealth in the country now than in the previous year. I welcome that, but this great big amount of £824,000,000 for this year compares badly, let me say, with other countries. It costs only £700,000,000 to run the United States of America, a country nearly as big as Europe. It costs Germany, our opponent in trade,
£455,000,000, Russia £377,000,000, and Canada £60,000,000. Is there no method by which we can get sonic greater reduction, so as to compare more equally with our opponents in trade in this way?
The Chancellor has included in his Budget £4,000,000 from France. I welcome any money we can get in reduction of taxation, but what does that mean? It means that if you take the franc at 125—I believe it is 146 to-day— France, has to buy the equivalent at a pre-War rate of exchange of £20,000,000 for this £4,000,000, and if France has to pay the United States a similar amount, it will mean a further sum which she will have to buy at the appreciated rate of exchange. French imports in the last three months have been greater than her exports, and that does not help her to pay an external debt. Except by gold it will be difficult for France to make these payments in her present condition. May I refer now to the revenue of the country? Partly, the revenue of the country for this last year is misleading. The increase, although I welcome it, came chiefly from non-taxable sources, and I feel that that may not happen again, and we should not anyhow rely on the buoyancy of revenue which we had in 1925–26.
The Income Tax—and I am sure this will interest the hon. Member for Keighley—is extraordinarily heavy, whether just or unjust—I contend that it is just —but if you take the figures between 1920 and 1026 and add the Super-tax to them, because Super-tax is really an extended Income Tax, between 1920 and 1926 the Income Tax payers and the Super-tax payers paid 22,797,000,000 to the Exchequer. That is a mountain of revenue. It is extraordinary amongst a few people that we should be alive to tell a tale of that sort, that this gigantic amount has been paid, and if you compare our Income Tax with that of other countries—the Committee will forgive me in making this comparison again—you will see that we are higher taxed than the countries I am going to name. In Canada, on £600 a year income, the Income Tax is £8; in the United States it is nil; and in our country it is £32 10s. Take the rich man, the £10,000 a year man. In Canada, he pays Income Tax and Super-tax amounting to £1,930; in the United States he pays £1,071;and
in Britain he pays £3,015. I am sure if we could get down to the basis of the United States or of Canada, it would be of benefit and would stimulate our trade. I welcome doing away with the three years' Income Tax calculation, because I feel that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to amalgamate the Income Tax with the Super-tax, and in that way there should be a reduction of expenditure. I should also like to congratulate the Chancellor on having come to an arrangement with the Irish Free State in regard to double taxation. It is a great asset and a great bit of statesmanship to have settled this knotty and difficult problem.
Now I come to the expenditure, and, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated in his speech, expenditure governs the position. It is quite true, but it is a sad tale to tell of the increase of expenditure since my party came into power—two years of increase. We are pledged to economy. It is an alarming growth, and I wish to impress on the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the necessity, the vital necessity, for some reduction in this expenditure. It is no good saying it cannot be done. I am absolutely confident that it can be done, and I only hope that this country does not get into such a terrible financial state that it is forced on my party to have to reduce expenditure in some other way. Does the Financial Secretary realise that every penny that the Government takes has to be earned by trade and commerce? It does not matter whether it is a betting duty or what it is; it all has to come out of trade and commerce, and the more money that can be left in the pockets of the people, the better it is for the country at large.
With regard to the National Debt, I am very disappointed that the Colwyn Committee on the National Debt has not made its Report up to the present time. It will be a most important Report that will be issued, and we are most anxious to have it, and I cannot help thinking that the two or three years which have been going on since the Committee began its investigations is almost too long. There is one big problem which was referred to by the hon. Member for Keighley, and that is the national interest problem. He referred to the con-
version of debt and interest. I understand, from what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that the rate of interest per annum on the National Debt has been reduced by £75,000,000 since the War. Our interest, I quite agree with him, is too large. It is three-eighths of the total of expenditure, and the question is: How can it be reduced It can only be reduced in one way, and that is by improving our credit. Has our credit improved? No. Our credit, since the Conservative Government has been in power, has gone down, not 1 per cent, as mentioned by the right hon. Member for Colne Valley, but by about ½ per cent.
Supposing you take the 3½ per cent. Conversion Loan, yon will find that when we came into power that conversion stock was standing at 80. It is now about 75. This shows a. reduction of 10s. per cent. You have to allow also for a reduction of 6d. in the Income Tax, which makes the problem worse from a percentage basis and nearer the one per cent. mentioned by the right hon. Member for Colne Valley. There are two questions which must be considered. Why has credit fallen, and how ran credit be improved? It has fallen because everybody who has got into a difficulty has looked to the Government for assistance, either in subsidies or in guarantees of various sorts. This practice must, stop. I welcome what the Chancellor the Exchequer said in regard to the Trade Facilities Act, but may I ask the Financial Secretary whether that includes the Trade Facilities (No. 2) Act? Does it include the export credit, because that was in the Trade Facilities Act, as far as I remember?

Lieut. Commander KENWORTHY: It was a separate Act.

6.0 P.M.

Sir F. WISE: Well, it was called the Trade Facilities Act anyhow. What about all these other subsidies and guarantees which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is either proposing or going to give? They should be clone away with. Credit insurance we were promised yesterday. Then there is agricultural credit. There is going to be, I believe, a central Land Bank, and then there are various propositions, such as the Electricity Supply Bill, with £33,500,000 guaranteed. It is not business. You
cannot get your credit better if you are gong to give millions away under your State guarantee. So far as the Electricity Bill is concerned, I feel that when that. Financial Resolution is considered, it should be fought tooth and nail by financial Members in this House, and I am confident the money can be raised without this State guarantee. I saw a question down recently when the subsidy was actually refused, I am glad to say. The amount was for £50 for killing cormorants. Just fancy asking for £50 to kill cormorants which are eating about two tons of fish a year! It is laughable to think that a question of that sort should come before this House.
I come to my second question, as to how it can be improved. The only way it can he improved is by the Chancellor of the Exchequer putting down his foot and stopping all these credits, guarantees, subsidies, and so on. It is not business for the State to guarantee with taxpayers' money, and the taxpayer to hand out his credit for such things as I have mentioned. But how else can it be improved? Could not something be done so that the Estimates are looked at and examined before they come to this House? I feel certain the Financial Secretary to the Treasury has seen the recent Report of the Estimates Committee. At present Estimates might just as well not be presented to this House at all. We all know what happens the two days in July, the millions that go through without being looked at at all, and not ever even examined. I feel confident that if we started some new organisation, with an Estimates Committee, it would be to the benefit of the taxpayer and, eventually, would reduce expenditure.
There is one other matter, which I mentioned last time I spoke in this House, and that was that the Trustee Act should be suspended for three years for future Dominion loans. I know it is a knotty question, but it would help the Exchequer in the conversion of our loans, and reduce our expenditure in that way. I do not want to go into all the details of the Trustee Act. It is only in future loans that I would suggest a thing of this sort, in an extremity—because we are in an extremity—to endeavour to get these large maturities floated on a more reasonable and lower
interest basis than at the present time. Conditions have altered since the Trustee Act first came into force. We have now Canada borrowing money from the United States. That country borrowed last month £8,000,000 at 4.13 per cent. We could not lend money to Canada at that rate.
Conditions have altered, and I wish the Chancellor of the Exchequer would look into that, and see if it is possible to arrange something in the nature of the Trustee Act being suspended, say, for three years for future loans. I do not think it would do us any harm. We had tested the position last year of the embargo on loans when Australia was told to go to New York for her money, and I am confident that if the matter was explained to the Dominions, they would realise the extremity we are in on account of our conversion loans. I welcome, if we can afford it, the Sinking Fund being increased to £60,000,000. The question is, Can we afford it? I sincerely hope we can. Every addition to the Sinking Fund will reduce our Debt and eventually get us back on to a firmer and sounder basis, and a reduction in the expenditure will take place which is so much desired. When the Chancellor deals with these maturities next year, I sincerely hope he will find a new security instead of a 3½per cent. conversion loan, if it is at the large discount at which it is standing at the present time. Economy has been preached almost by everybody. We all know the necessity of it, and I believe the Chancellor of the, Exchequer realises the necessity of it. Last year, I remember, he used a military metaphor, and said it was fixed bayonets all round; he meant to the various Departments. I wish he would drive those bayonets home, and get the economy which is so needful for this country.
In conclusion, I only want to say that I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Financial Secretary to the Treasury will realise the gravity of this increased expenditure. I know the Financial Secretary is a well-read man. If wonder if lately he has read the Creevy Papers. The Creevy Papers go back 100 years. In those days you had to fight for every of expenditure. Let us fight for every 1s. at the present time. Let us fight for every penny, because I feel
it is the taxpayer who wants to see that the Government are really reducing expenditure, instead of increasing it. I sincerely hope that, although the Chancellor of the Exchequer is not present, the Financial Secretary will convey to him the gravity of the situation, the necessity for the reduction of expenditure, and the possibility, as I contend, of reducing that expenditure.

Mr. WALLHEAD: The Budget we are discussing has been described in various terms, according to the side of the House from which it has been discussed. On the Chancellor's own side of the House it has been called bold more times than anything else. I am afraid that is not the adjective I shall apply to it myself. In my opinion, the Budget is a cowardly shrinking from patent facts, and I think, of all those who have taken part in the Debate, no one has more vividly shown up that particular aspect than the hon. Member who has just addressed the Committee. He speaks with authority, and there can be very cold comfort to supporters of the Government in the remarks he has just addressed to the Committee in a most powerful and eloquent speech. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, face to face with certain facts, has raked the entire realm to pick up every stray copper possible, in order to prevent himself imposing the taxation that the situation demands, and to prevent reimposing the taxation that he rather foolishly remitted last year, with regard to the Super-tax in particular. It would appear that a great deal of the present difficulty has arisen from his remission of the Super-tax last year, a remission that was, I think, quite unexpected even by those who received it, and by persons who really did not deserve it. In his attempt to escape reimposing taxation, he has raided every fund upon which he can lay his hands, and it is curious to note that in the taxes he has imposed, he has again come down most heavily upon that type of person whose funds have been raided most. He has raided the funds of the poor, and in his imposition of taxation he has again imposed taxes upon the poor. In so far as he is imposing taxation upon motor vehicles, he is raiding the luxuries, or the pleasures, of the poorer section of the community, and is further imposing a tax
upon the commodities to be carried in heavier vehicles.
That does not seem to me to be a very reasonable way, or an intelligent way, of getting out of the difficulties with which the country is faced at the present moment. Further, the right hon. Gentleman has made desperate efforts to obtain some contribution from our debtors abroad to assist him in his Budget. The Financial Secretary did his level best yesterday to meet the charge which the right hon. and learned Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) brought, when he quoted the official French communique with regard to the plea which the Treasury had made for a contribution from the French Government to meet the present Budget demands. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not been very fortunate, as far as this question of collecting debt from foreign debtors is concerned. He made a disastrous settlement with the Italian Government, a settlement that has aroused a great deal of feeling. I think, at any rate, those who have pleaded most earnestly that we need at the present moment some assistance as far as taxation is concerned, can have little but denunciation to offer of the settlement of the Italian Debt on the terms which the Chancellor concluded with the Italian Government. Political reasons, I agree, there may be in it, but the financial fact is that we are £26,000,000 per year down on the Italian Debt settlement. That does not seem to me, again, a very intelligent way of settling a question of that description. It may be that there are political considerations entering into the bargain. The House has not yet been made conversant with them, but, in my opinion, they may appear in the very near future. An effort has also been made to collect the French Debt.
I am going, at the risk of being charged with iteration, to mention another debt which the Government have failed to make any attempt to collect, and that is the debt which the Russian Government owes to this country. I want to point out in that connection that the Russian Government is the only Government which has expressed an earnest desire to come to a settlement. All the other Governments have avoided settlement as far as they can. Indeed, every Government has distinctly said it
wanted to avoid it as far as possible, and it was the earnest plea of the Chancellor himself that has got £4,000,000 out of a reluctant France. Certainly Italy never asked to settle her debt, and I do not know that France desired to settle hers, but from the speeches by Russian statesmen, by the Russian Foreign Secretary, and recently by the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Russia, the Russian Government is desirous of discovering from our own Government whether it can get a settlement of the outstanding questions, including the debt, and it is, I think, a fair assumption that the settlement which the Government could get with Russia would be upon quite as liberal, generous and just terms as we have obtained from any of our other debtors.
For the life of me I cannot understand why hon. Members opposite welcome the settlement of the Italian debt, welcome a settlement with France, appeal for remission of taxation, tell us in doleful terms about the burdens the country has to bear, and yet. support the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Cabinet in their, to my mind, obstinately stupid refusal to meet the Russian Government face to face and obtain from them whatever they are willing to pay in settlement of their outstanding debt. I do not know upon what basis a settlement could he made, but the Government would have a better case if they could tell us they were willing to consider terms, were willing to discuss a settlement instead of standing out obstinately in the way they do.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. McNeill): Will the hon. Member allow me to interrupt him to point out the difference? The difference is that the Russian Government deny the existence of a debt and repudiate it, whereas no other Government has done that. As soon as the Russian Government admit the existence of the debt, Hit Majesty's Government will be perfectly ready, as in other cases, to discuss how it should be paid.

Mr. WALLHEAD: Really, Sir, I am loth to believe that the right hon. Gentleman is quite as ignorant of the situation as his interjection would seem to imply. How are the Russian Government, to declare their intention? At
least they did not repudiate the debt in 1924. They said then, that whatever the law might be, and whatever might have been the conditions obtaining in 1917, they had come to the conclusion that it was not possible for them to be admitted into association with the western nations unless they repudiated to a. certain extent the law of 1917, under which expropriation had taken place; though they might maintain the law in Russia, they were prepared to forego the law outside, so far as our debt was concerned. It is well known that M. Rakovsky is at present engaged in discussing this very question of debts with the French Government, which is hoping to come to a settlement. If this debt question were swept away, confidence would be restored, so far as trade is concerned, and the deplorable state of unemployment would be relieved as a result of the orders which the Russian Government and their Trade Departments are prepared to give if only they can get confidence established so far as they are concerned. It is about time our Government dropped the assumption that the Russian Government have made no overtures whatever. They have made them upon numberless occasions, and I submit that our Government ought to approach them to let them know where they were wrong in 1924. Let them tell the Russian Government in what manner they disagreed with the proposed settlement of 1924. We know that they disagreed with the suggested loan, but with what else did they disagree? If they found that out it might be possible to come to closer grips with this question.
Another question I wish to deal with is that of the Gold Standard. The Chancellor of the Exchequer took very great credit to himself for the reestablishment of the Gold Standard. I opposed it, and I do not take the view of it that most Members of the House hold. I am quite prepared to be held up to ridicule in the position I take up, but I am sure I shall make myself no more ridiculous with my proposals than scores of hon. Members have been with their proposals in the years that are past. I oppose the Gold Standard entirely. I do not oppose its re-establishment now, or at some other time, but I believe the Gold Standard is altogether unnecessary. I believe we can manage
our affairs without, the Gold Standard. As I have before pointed out in Debate, it was gold that bolted first in 1914, and we had to come to unstable paper to take its place; and I am certain in my own mind that gold plays the game of those whose interests are not synonymous with those of the great mass of the people. Whether that be so or not, deflation accompanied the restoration of the Gold Standard, and whom does deflation hit most? It hits the working classes worst of all. There is no question whatever about that. The coal trade was badly hit, and so was the steel trade, and it prevented a return to healthy conditions in those vital industries upon which the prosperity of so many of our people depends.
The policy of deflation is an exceedingly good one for those who draw interest, but not for those who have to gain their livelihood by working for wages. An appeal has been made to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give the country some hope of a remission of taxation, or of some change in taxation, in order to give us encouragement for the future. Upon what grounds is that argument based? It was stated in the "Economist" a short time ago that the profits in industry during 1925 were 50 per cent. higher than in 1922; and the "Economist." of a recent date has declared that 1925 brought back the conditions of the boom year of 1920. So far as I can make out from the returns, this is a very good country for everybody except those who have to work at productive industry. It is an excellent country for those whose incomes are derived from other sources than manual labour. Great Britain still remains what a witty Frenchman described it: "The Paradise of the rich, the Purgatory of the wise, and the Hell of the poor." That it is a hell for the poor, facts, crowding upon one another, amply demonstrate.
Take the increase in the value of Stock Exchange shares. The "Bankers' Magazine" for 10th January, 1925, stated that in the year 1924 the market value of 365 representative securities showed a total appreciation of £262,000,000. That was not so very bad. It looked as though things were not so dreadfully dull as some assumed them to be. The power of a relatively small section of the community to provide new
capital appeared to be almost unlimited. For the four years from 1921 to 1924, inclusive, there was invested at home and abroad no less than £1,443,438,000. In the United Kingdom there was invested in those years £938,281,000; in British Possessions £330,499,000; and in foreign countries £174,658,000; a total of £1,443,438,000. That is a large sum of money to be added to the enormous total of foreign investments existing even at the end of the War. This enormous amount was added to the wealth already possessed by those who were the holders of the wealth before and after the War. A Committee that sat to consider the question of pre-War wealth told us that the wealth of the country before the War was, roughly. £11,000,000,000. They were told that by Sir Josiah Stamp, and they accepted his statement. They themselves estimated that the War added £4,180,000,000 to the wealth of a small section of the community. Thus at the end of the War the country was worth in capital values about £15,000,000,000.
The gentlemen who own this wealth are also, to a large extent, the owners of the National Debt. The hon. Member for Word (Sir F. Wise) told us of the enormous amount which that rich section who pay Income Tax on the higher scale have paid during the last six years. It is very true that an enormous sum has been contributed in Income Tax on the higher scale in those six years, but in the eight years since the War—I will take the six years if that is convenient—but in the eight years since the War I estimate that in interest alone £2,800,000,000 has been paid. We have been told by Committees who sneak with authority that fifteen-sixteenths of that sum has gone into the pockets of one small section, a very tiny section, of the community. It comes to this, that though the Income Tax payer may be hit he has to provide a very large sum of money, yet on the War Debt alone he will receive back, roughly, about £300,000,000. He pays it out in taxation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer with one hand, and draws it back with his War Loans with the other hand. It is simply taking money out, of one pocket and putting it into the other, and that is not taxation. As a matter of fact, the real people who are being taxed by this system are those without investments, and who
are taxed on their small earnings in a way that presses very heavily upon them.
I have got out some figures showing the average industrial profits of large representative concerns for the year 1920. I find that in 1920 the average industrial profit was 15.2 per cent.; in 1921 the average was 10.3, in 1922 7.1, in 1923 9.8, and in 1924 10.3 per cent. The average 'or the five years is just over 10 per cent. While this average of 10 per cent. profit has been taken over those live years, the wages of the workers were reduced by £700,000,000 per year. Therefore, I would suggest that before hon. Members ask for assistance to be given to industry by reducing wages and increasing the hours of labour, they should turn their attention to lowering the rate of interest which they are prepared to accept, and they should be content to take less profits. Those figures show that the position is quite as black as I have described, and the blackness of the question reflects itself in the lives of the working people.
I always have before me the conditions under which the people in my constituency are compelled to live. A week ago in my constituency two men told me that during Easter week they had been working short time. They had worked only two or three days, and after deductions for health insurance and unemployed insurance, and the various payments which a miner has to make out of his wages, one or them went home with ld. in his pocket, and the other with 3d. That is where the blackness lies. In spite of these facts the average profit of 10 per cent. is continually being made. There is an enormous increase of wealthy people. Those who toil and create that wealth feel the burden most, and it is shameful that this should be so. The Chancellor of the Exchequer instead of raiding the funds of these poor people should be doing some thing to decrease their burdens. Let me suggest that the Government should pursue a foreign policy that will permit vast reductions in our expenditure upon the Army and the Navy, and upon our military expenditure in all directions. If the Government will curtail expenditure in that direction, they can at least do something to reduce the enormous burdens which at present fall upon the community. I think it is a great shame to reduce the wages of the poor people when you do
not at the same time reduce interest and profits all round.
It is said that it would be difficult to do this, but I believe in getting those you can catch. The law does not refuse to imprison burglars because it cannot get all of them. The law punishes those burglars who are caught, and much of the wealth upon which I would like to see the interest reduced is the wealth extorted during the time of our direst need in the blackest years through which the country has passed. Something might be done on those lines. The rate of interest to-day might be cut down. Money is being taken out of the pockets of those who toil and it is passing into the pockets of those whose pockets are bulging with money already. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to do something to remove the burdens that press upon the homes of the people, something that would assure them of a brighter future.

Sir HENRY CAUTLEY: I want to say a few words about one or two of the proposals which have been made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I am sorry the right hon. Gentleman is not in his place, because I wish to make a few remarks about the Betting Duty. I was chairman of the Committee which considered this question, and we had before us evidence of the working of the Betting Duty in Ontario, New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, New Zealand, the Cape of Good Hope, the. Transvaal, Natal, and Bengal. I think the Committee will agree with me when I say that every independent Dominion has a betting tax in operation, and has had years of experience of it. We had further evidence placed before us as to the betting taxation in force in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany and Austria. Practically every country except America taxes betting. I wish to impress upon the Committee the fact that not one single country that has ever introduced it has gone back upon it. In every country where it has been adopted it has produced a steadily increasing revenue, and nearly every country has expressed satisfaction because they have control of an amusement or institution which you cannot prohibit or stop, although it is considered to be most important that you should be able to control it.

Viscountess ASTOR: I would like to ask the lion. Member if any other country has got anything such as we are now proposing, or are their laws quite different and not comparable with ours?

Sir H. CAUTLEY: On the contrary, most of them are very similar. Many of them have the totalisator and the pari-mutuel. Nearly all of them have found that the pari-mutuel and the totalisator do not do away with the bookmaker, and even at the present moment the French Government is passing legislation to license and control bookmakers. Almost every community of Britishers has taxed this luxury, and not one has gone against it. Under these circumstances, is it nut perfectly idle for bishops and betting men to come forward and say to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "You cannot enforce this tax, and therefore you will get no revenue from it,' when the whole of our experience is directly contrary to that assertion. Let us look as to how it is to be enforced. Take the credit bookmaker. He has to be registered and licensed, and it is only necessary that his books should be open for inspection. It is to the interest of every bookmaker that everything in his books should be straightforward, because if he loses his registration he loses his livelihood. We have been told by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman) that bookmakers are fishy people, but I think, if the right hon. Gentleman had had any experience of betting, he would have known that that is not so, because bookmakers are the straightest people.
What is the plan adopted in regard to the racecourse? The bookmaker is obliged to issue a ticket for every bet he makes. He has to be licensed, and, if he is found on more than one casual occasion not issuing tickets with his bets, he runs the risk of losing his licence, and consequently losing his livelihood. The betting man says that what is now proposed would be an irksome business. It works out in this way. One man may have a bet of £1, another 10s. or 5s., and the Committee which considered this question agreed that there was no difficulty of any sort or kind in carrying this ticket system into effect. What does the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) say on this point? He has told us that there will
be such a leakage and an encouragement of unlicensed and illegal street betting that the tax will be unproductive. Who are the people who are going to be driven to street betting?

Sir JOHN SIMON: Was not that the evidence placed before the Committee over which the hon. Member presided by the Chairman of the Board of Customs?

Sir H. CAUTLEY: That is quite true, but I have satisfied myself that the leakage would not be so great as the Chairman of the Inland Revenue thought it would be, and for this reason. First of all, I agree with the principle that, if you tax an article and leave a similar article untaxed there may be a leakage, and people will escape the tax. I would point out, however, that the people who bet on the racecourse are the people who are betting legally; and I would like to ask how many of those people are going to be driven to illegal betting and the risk of appearing in a Police Court? I do not think there would be very many such cases.
I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea how is this increase in illegal betting going to take place? May I point out to him that the street bookmaker only bets at starting prices, and the only way in which he can bet is to do it surreptitiously. Street betting is generally done by people putting a name—it is not always their own name—on a slip of paper and the name of the horse, and then the money is handed surreptitiously to the bookmaker. No price is fixed, no odds are fixed by the street bookmaker; those odds are fixed by the starting price on the racecourse, and a starting price will still be fixed on the racecourse, which will be published in the newspapers.
It seems to me, therefore, perfectly impossible to suggest that, a street bookmaker can give better odds, because the only guarantee of fair odds that is given by the street bookmaker is what comes out in the evening editions of the newspapers, which is settled in the regular way on the racecourse and which all the bookmakers pay, and must pay, because, otherwise, their great clientèle, which runs into hundreds of thousands, will think, and rightly think, they are being swindled. Therefore, in my view—and I am steeped in this matter from having
heard all the evidence given before the Betting Committee—it is, in the first place, not likely that people will go from a legal to an illegal act to any great extent, and, secondly, those who seek to bet with the street bookmaker, that is to say, to indulge in illegal betting, do not gain any advantage so far as they themselves are concerned.
In my opinion, the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Runciman) put it on a wrong basis. I myself regret that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not seen his way to bringing in the street bookmaker and dealing with street betting. I was very much more interested in the reformative aspect of the control of betting by taxation than in its use as an engine for financial purposes, and I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer may ultimately have to bring in the street bookmaker, because he is by this means increasing, and must increase, the profits a the street bookmaker. There is not the least doubt that betting can stand a sax. It is a pure luxury, which ought to be taxed, and can stand a tax. That tax will be paid by the backer by shortening the odds, which are far too short as they are now, because of the power of the ring. They will be still shorter. The street bookmaker, however, as I have shown, will still pay the same odds which are fixed on the racecourse.
That means that the starting price bookmaker, who gets by far the largest. percentage of profit of any bookmaker, and will still get a larger percentage of profit, will be able to have more money to pay the fines of his touts and runners, and to bribe other people who ought to be engaged in putting him down. He will make his business still more lucrative, and bring still more people into it, and we shall still have our artisan houses, and even more women and children, canvassed to a great extent by bookmakers, and, as I see it, some future Chancellor of the Exchequer will be bound to bring in this part of the business. In conclusion, I congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer on having gene as far as he has gone, and, from the experience of other countries, knowing the extent to which betting is carried on in this country, and knowing that it is absolutely innate in our race, I have not
the least doubt that he will get the money for which he is budgeting, and I personally think he will get more.

Major HILLS: I have listened with great interest to the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for East Grinstead (Sir H. Cautley), especially because he was Chairman of one of the Committees that inquired into the question of betting taxation. He has as given us a detailed account, but I hope he will allow me to say that I thought the last part of his speech contradicted the first. He started by telling us that it was possible to tax legal betting—credit betting and racecourse betting—and to leave untaxed street betting, and that there would not be a drain from the one to the other; but he concluded by saying he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be driven to tax street betting. I believe his second mind is better than his first; I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be driven to include the illegal betting, for I think there will be a drain from the taxed article to the cheaper and better untaxed article. Moreover, even a tax has to have some justice about it, and it is hardly fair to tax the man who is observing the law, and leave untaxed the man who is breaking the law. Therefore, I think my hon. and learned Friend is quite right, and that the Chancellor of the, Exchequer will be driven to tax street betting and ready-money betting away from the racecourse.
That means that you legalise ready-money betting. Let the Committee just realise what that means. It means that anybody who can obtain an excise licence may start a betting shop in a street, and we shall have our streets amply provided with places where any passer-by can go in and bet. I do not want to argue on the moral ground on one side or the other, but I am perfectly certain that the country would never allow that. It would never stand the exposure to temptation of-everybody who passes along a street—young men and young women, people of all sorts and kinds—who could go in and quite legally and comfortably stake their money on a horse. We had some experience of that kind a long time ago, when the Act that made betting illegal, or tried to make betting illegal, was passed—

Sir J. SIMON: The Act for suppressing betting houses.

Major HILLS: I accept the correction. I am quite certain that in these days the country would never permit our towns to go back to that condition, and I regard that as the only logical result of a betting tax. I do hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will at any rate leave this question to the House. It is a constitutional right of the House to reject a tax that it does not like. As far as expenditure is concerned, the Government can pass their expenditure, and they have a bigger claim over the allegiance of the House than they have in the case of a tax, but it, is perfectly well recognised that a tax is more open to criticism.
Except as regards the Betting Duty, upon which the views of the Committee have been very various, I do not think I have ever listened to a Debate in which opinion was more unanimous; and opinion was unanimous, not only upon the evil that we have to face, but upon the means of facing it. All, or nearly all, of the speakers in the Debate have called attention to the largely increased expenditure. All have said that it must he cut down, and very nearly all have said that it can only be reduced in two ways—either by some reduction of the rate of interest on our Debt, or by some co-ordination between the different Fighting Services, and, therefore, a reduction upon our Fighting Estimates. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the interesting speech that he made on the Second Reading of the Economy Bill, told the House that we must look for Budgets round about £800,000,000. I confess that when I heard those words I shivered, but I ought to have fortified myself, for the reality has proved considerably worse than the expectation. £800,000,000 was quite bad enough, but now we see that expenditure is increasing, and looks like increasing still more in the future. At this time of the evening it is impossible to produce any new arguments, and I certainly do not want to cite figures which have been quoted over and over again. But it is worth while, perhaps, to point out that our estimated expenditure has increased very largely over that of last year, in spite of the fact that we had a fall of £2,500,000 in war pensions last year, and that we also have the economies of the Economy Bill, of which
the lowest estimate was £8,000,000. These economies and the fall in war pensions have all been swamped, and, in spite of them, our expenditure has risen immensely.
The next factor to which I want to call attention is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that our tax revenue was not classic, that our Miscellaneous Receipts are dying out, and that we are getting, on the other side of the account, a substantial sum in reparations and debts from our Allies. I am very glad we are getting that money. I agree with hon. Gentlemen opposite that, if we could get seine money from Russia, I should be very pleased indeed. I was not in the House at the time when the Russian negotiations took place, but was under the impression that the Russians came after our money rather than with any intention of paying money to us. Still, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer can find any way of getting the Soviet Government to agree to pay a share of their War Debt to us, I am sure no one will he so pleased as he will be.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has to balance his Budge, and he can do it in the two traditional ways, either by reducing expenditure or by finding more revenue. He chooses the course of finding more revenue, and of tapping new sources of revenue. It is sometimes thought that, if you have tapped a new source of taxation for 'bringing in national revenue, if you have found something quite new, something that has not been explored before, you are increasing the assets of your country, just as the private individual who manages a property well may increase the revenue of that property. But wherever the money comes from, it all comes from the same pool. Supposing that you tax the bookmaker; he, I expect, is a man who invests his savings just as wisely as the politician does—if the politician ever makes any savings—and, if you tax him, you do deplete the fund that is available for business or investment. If you deplete that fund, if you make it smaller, the people who want to borrow from that fund have to pay more for their loans, and the biggest borrower of all is the Government, for, as has been already said, we shall be compelled to re-borrow £945,000,000 in three years.
I am ashamed to travel over ground which has been covered so often but I do want to reinforce, if I can, what has been said about the rate of interest. We all of us know that the one great economy we can effect is ill the amount of interest that we shall pay on our loans. He would be a very bold man who, if he had to re-borrow that £900,000,000 now would expect to re-borrow it at less than 5 per cent.
7.0 P.M.
Now the national accounts can be looked at either from the point of view of expenditure or from the point of view of revenue, and I am not sure that the Government are not looking at them from the point of view of revenue. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that expenditure governs the situation. It does expenditure of the State determines its revenue, and, when he talks about fresh sources of taxation and fresh revenue, I venture to think that he is approaching the question from a rather dangerous angle. No doubt you can tax the country heavily, and people will pay heavy taxes. That his been known for a very long tin past. There is nothing new in that, but when you do tax the country you are not entitled to regard the: as something new that has fallen into your hands, and so we have to come back to expenditure.
I have listened to all this Debate for three days, and I have taken a note of the various suggestions of economics. One hon. Member opposite suggested that the Civil Service is very much overpaid A speaker on the Labour Benches said that we ought to drop the Singapore Base. Another speaker said that we ought to ration all the Departments and that only by that means could we get economy. I do not think that the Civil Service is overpaid. I do not think that you can ration Departments, because, after all, you have got to govern the country, and it is very difficult to combine efficiency with any sort of rationing. So we come back to the suggestions made to make possible the economics that I have mentioned, either in lowering interest on our Debt or some reduction in the cost of the Fighting Services. I quite agree that if we can get our Debt on a lower interest it will be a very real economy. I am not sure that we could,
and, as was pointed out in an interesting speech yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich (Mr. Hilton Young), we do not always realise, though we put aside the sinking funds and though we congratulate ourselves upon the large amount of debt that has been repaid, that we are borrowing at the same time and piling up new debt while we are paying our old debt.
Here I want to call attention to and to emphasise the rein-ark made by my right lion. Friend the Member- for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman). He made a very interesting speech. I would dearly like to follow him in some of his Free Trade arguments, but he will realise that time does riot permit that. I found myself in disagreement with a good deal of his speech, but I found myself in entire agreement with one sentence, and that was when he urged the Chancellor of the Exchequer to beware of the wiles of his followers. He told him, and it is quite true, that he would be urged to new extravagances. The point that I want to make is that it is we, this Committee, who have been talking three days about economy, who do press extravagance on the Government. The only two economies that have really received support, the saving in interest on the National Debt, and the amlagamation or the co-ordination of the Fighting Services, are economies which either hit nobody, or are so remote that nobody regards them as possible. As soon as you pull out an economy from the abstract into the concrete, from the possible into the actual, you at once get the same opposition to the individual economy as you get support for the theory of economy in general. There, I believe, lies the root of the difficulty under which the country is suffering. It. is within the knowledge of everybody that the Government are being pressed now on all hands to spend money. Some Members want money spent on this or that social service; some want it spent on subsidies; some want Government credit used on guarantees. It is the combined effect of all these claims and demands on the Government which brings us the Budget we see before us.
The right hon. Member for West Swansea also said quite truly—and here again I agree with him—that the only way to restore our credit and pay off debt lies in the fact that you pay off debt by spending
rather less than your revenue. I agree that the only proper sinking fund is to have a surplus revenue over expenditure. Unfortunately, as soon as you show a surplus at all, it is not only the Sinking Fund and the taxpayer that claim it, but it is claimed by all parties in the House, all of whom are equally to blame, and all of whom want money spent. We do not realise nowadays that this House of Commons is the body that ought to economise and to check the Government from spending money. We have quite given up that work altogether. The criticism of the Estimates has become a formality or a farce, and it is we who urge expenditure on the Government. So, though I do not like the large expenditure which this Budget shows, though I had hoped that my right hon. Friend would have shown us more reduction in the course of the Budget, still I am bound to admit that he is not a free agent in the matter, that he has to resist all sorts of extravagant claims made, not only by hon. Gentlemen opposite, but also by Members who sit on the same side of the House.
I believe we all agree that we cannot go on spending money at this rate. Expenditure grows up so fast, and, once it is on the upgrade, it shows a tendency to increase faster still. It is no good telling me we are bringing in new sources of untapped revenue. The thing I look at is the expenditure. Though I confess that the methods of reducing expenditure that emerge from this Debate are not of a very encouraging kind, and though I feel that if one only read the speeches of Members of the Committee, one would not see many places in which one could save money, still I am perfectly certain that, unless we do spend less, we are going into a dangerous position. Our tax revenue shows no elasticity. We have spent all our war stores and miscellaneous services, and unless we economise I find that our outlook is a gloomy one.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I shall not attempt to conceal from the Committee the general sense of satisfaction which has stolen steadily over me during the course of this three days' Debate. I have seen a great many Budgets in this house under very different conditions, and I do not remember one which, at the outset, seemed to encounter such a weak, dis-
united, discursive or contradictory opposition. No doubt there will be many aspects of controversy to occupy us during the prolonged and elaborate stages of our financial procedure, and there have been a number of interesting questions raised in the Debate. But, speaking generally, I think I am entitled to say that this Budget is more nearly a virtually agreed Budget than any other it has been my fortune to take part in during the period of almost a quarter of a century that I have sat in this House. A number of important questions have been discussed by temperate or violent critics in every quarter of the House, and I propose to deal seriatim with the most prominent of these questions. I discern five aspects which stand out in the discussion, and call for special reference from me—Credit, Economy, the Road Fund, the Betting Duty, and the stabilisation of Imperial Preference. I think that is a fair selection of the principal points on which our discussions have turned.
I take Credit fist. The right hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Snowden), who showed his deep disapproval of the Budget by referring to it for about 10 minutes in the course of a speech which exceeded an hour, commented on the difference between the deposit rate of the Joint Stock banks and the rate we have to pay for Treasury Bills, which moves up and down, below but in intimate association with the Bank rate. The difference between the deposit rate of the Joint Stock banks and the Bank rate is at present 2 per cent., and it has been so ever since the War. The Joint Stock banks have always had a deposit rate well below the discount rate of the Bank of England. It is natural that they should do so. The money they receive on deposit is scattered about in innumerable small earns throughout the length and breadth of the country, and the bulk of it is claimable at seven days' notice, whereas Treasury Bills are on a three months' basis. The Joint Stock banks only hold very small fraction of the Treasury Bills. It is a delusion to suppose that their prosperity is built up on the excessively favourable terms they obtain under the present financial system from the Exchequer. Their dealings in Treasury Bills are only an infinitesimal part of their vast transactions.
The margin of difference to which attention has been drawn by the right hon. Gentleman is no greater than it was in the days when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The position has not altered in any essential, and I ask myself why has he raised this issue at this moment. What prompted him to comment upon it? The right hon. Gentleman made no secret of his inspiration. It was, he told us, an article by the City Editor of the "Daily News." I have no doubt it was a very able and well written article, but what an exiguous and precarious foundation, this stray article in a newspaper, on which an ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking with the authority of the official Opposition should base a demand for the nationalisation of our banking system. The right hon. Gentleman spoke in terms of sorrow of the state of our Credit. He spoke in words which have been echoed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea (Mr. Runciman) this afternoon. He spoke of its delicate equipoise. Whether the delicate equipoise of our credit is likely to be ameliorated and fortified by proposals coming from a responsible Member of His Majesty's Official Opposition, to nationalise the banking system is a question on which I am sure the Committee will be able to judge for itself. The right hon. Gentleman referred to an interjected remark of mine last year in which I said I certainly hoped for a saving of about £5,000,000 in the service of the debt each year. That was only an interjection on my part and one of a general character without reference to any particular year, but it was not so far wrong. In 1924 the debt interest cost us £312,000,000. In 1925 it cost us £308,200,000, and if the Estimate for 1926 is realised it will cost us £304,000,000. Thus all the complaint the right hon. Gentleman had to make on this score was that in an interjectory remark I had suggested £5,000,000 as the rate at which we hoped to reduce our debt, whereas in fact we are realising a steady annual reduction of approximately £4,000,000.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea addressed us on the immense importance of the conversion possibilities and the opportunities which will be presented to us in the next few years. I can assure him and the Com-
mittee that that is, I will not say the main, but a prime preoccupation of the Treasury. We are endeavouring by every means in our power to create favourable conditions for these operations which may be substantially advantageous to the taxpayer and indeed to the whole country. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that we should secure a revenue substantially in excess of our expenditure, and that we should devote with the utmost rigour the largest available sums to the amortisation of the debt. I agree with him. In this matter of conversion we shall need the help of all parties and of all classes in the country if we are to reap a benefit in which everyone will share. We are doing our best in this Budget, first of all, by closing down the Trade Facilities Scheme at the end of this year, and, secondly, by the payment of an extra 10,000,000 into the new Sinking Fund so as to raise that total to £60,000,000 instead of £50,000,000.
The right hon. Gentleman accused me of raiding the old Sinking Fund, and used language which would have led anyone unacquainted with the actual facts to suppose that I have been guilty this year of some laxity or impropriety in the achievement of debt redemption. If this time last week the right hon. Gentleman, with all his knowledge of the financial situation, had been told we proposed and were able in our financial plans to pay off £10,000,000 of the increased debt incurred last year through the coal subsidy he would not have believed it. He would have scouted the suggestion and would have said it was quite impossible with the resources at our disposal that we should be able to achieve such a result, and he would have added that it was quite impossible that so imprudent, thriftless and improvident person as myself would ever be found taking such orthodox and correct steps. Now when we are confronted with the actual fact, instead of according me, as he should have done, and as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley should have done—because he declared beforehand that this was really the correct policy—that meed of praise and encouragement they merely make this act of correctitude and propriety on my part a ground for a vague, ill-founded denunciation.
I come to the question of economy. Here I should like to say a few words of a general character about false arguments. It seems to me—and I have a lengthening experience in the House—that false arguments very rarely pay in debate. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are using them now!"] I always try to economise the use of false arguments as much as possible, because a false argument is so often detected, and it always repels any listener who is not already a convinced and enthusiastic partisan. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Colne Valley deliberately, and I must say wilfully, used a false argument in comparing the estimated expenditure of this year with the estimated expenditure of last year. He compared the Estimate this year of £820,000,000 with the Estimate of £799,000,000 which I presented the year before. But, as I have said again and again such a comparison is absolutely false and misleading unless you compare like with like. As the right hon. Gentleman knows quite well, in order to make a fair and reasonable comparison it is necessary to deduct from the present Estimate of £820,000,000, first of all, £4,000,000 which is provided for the winding-up of the coal subsidy and the £10,000,000 which is provided for the repayment of a portion of what we borrowed last year for the coal subsidy. We also have to deduct the purely book-keeping transactions, the £2,750,000 for teachers' pensions and the £1,000,000 for Excise Duty on the increased beet sugar and he himself admitted publicly in debate in the last few weeks that it is perfectly reasonable and sensible to allow for the increase of expenditure on remunerative services like the Road Fund and the Post Office—an increase of £2,250,000 net.
All these reductions, amounting approximately to £20,000,000, ought in common fairness, and I may say if you are proceeding to argue by any rational process, to be deducted before any attempt is made to found an accusation on a comparison of the total Estimate this year with the total Estimate last year, and, if it is deducted, it is seen that the total Estimate this year hardly exceeds at all the total Estimate for last year. That may indeed be a cause for complaint. "We expected you to make a net reduction." That is a perfectly fair
argument. But to pour out all this acorn and all these diatribes on the false basis of their having been an increase of £20,000,000 in the estimated expenditure, and not to make the allowances which the right hon. Gentleman knows, and everyone else in the House knows quite well by this time, are proper and appropriate, is a procedure which, I am sure, has only to be exposed to be discredited.
But what right, I should like to know, has the right hon. Gentleman to pose as a champion of economy at all, or as a judge of the effort at economy of other people? Last week, in winding up the Debate on the Economy Bill, I observed that the party opposite were by their natural inclination, conscious and unconscious, prone to profusion in expenditure in every direction, except of course in Imperial defence. I noticed at the time that this very serious accusation was taken very calmly by hon. Members opposite. They did not rally to it with any indignation, and yesterday the right hon. Gentleman dropped the mask—dropped all this pretence of economy. "Bunkum," I think was the word he used, but, whatever it was, he dropped it all and told us in so many words that for his part he declared general war upon economy. He boasted that in a former Parliament, when the expenditure of the country was only £200,000,000, he was urging that it should be raised to £300,000,000, and implied that that really was the spirit in which he was approaching the problem now. So far as I can make out, the position which the right hon. Gentleman disclosed is that the more there is spent on social services, irrespective of the wealth of the country, the better; the less that is spent on defence, irrespective of the needs of the country, the better, and so long as the money is spent on social services, the greater the burden on the direct taxpayer, the better. That seems to me to be a perfectly fair epitome of the arguments which are used with a good deal of sincerity from the benches opposite, and which are also used, I will not say with less honesty but in utter violation of all Liberal principles by the party on the benches below the Gangway opposite. The right hon. Member for Colne Valley is not, I am sorry to say, in his place. He told me that he had a public engagement to take part in one of the impending by-elections. We may
imagine him, in our thoughts, in a few moments time, addressing a far less critical assembly than this, and repeating to them the same stream of Parliamentary Billingsgate with which he favoured us last night. I had more to say about the right hon. Gentleman, but in view of his absence and his occupation I will leave him at this point.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead (Sir R. Horne), in a speech which gave the greatest pleasure to these who have worked with him on intimate terms in public life, made one criticism to which I will venture, in all meekness, to reply. My right hon. Friend said that I had brought some of my troubles on myself, and he proceeded in this connection to point out that the responsibility for expenditure rested upon the Government. He said that the Government would be very wrong to try to east any portion of that responsibility upon those whom he termed their docile followers. In this respect his argument, apparently, was diametrically countered by the hon. and gallant Member for Ripon (Major Hills). I should like to make it quite clear that the Government have no intention of shirking their responsibilities in the matter. When one talks of Parliament and of the House as well as the Government being responsible, it is because the ultimate responsibility lies with Parliament and with the House, and because they are associated, and must continually feel themselves associated, with every act of the administration which they approve.
In the case which my right hon. Friend had in mind, the responsibility of the House was no mere formal responsibility. When he said that I am to blame for some of my troubles, he was no doubt referring —the whole context of his speech showed it—to the introduction of the Widows' and Old Age Pensions Bill, for which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health (Mr. Chamberlain) and I were primarily responsible last year. This was not a matter in which the Government took the initiative. It was a, matter, as he will remember, on which the Conservative party and the House of Commons took the initiative before ever the Budget was introduced. We had a full Debate on a Private Members' night, when a universal request was made from all
quarters that we should implement the pledges given by every party at every election on this subject.

Sir R. HORNE: I do not like to interrupt my right hon. Friend, but the objection I took to that was the time at which it was brought in and the condition of industry which was asked to bear the burden.

Mr. CHURCHILL: I know; I am only on the point of responsibility. I say that we have not sought to shirk our responsibility. We accept it to the full. If there was any matter on which in more than a formal sense the House as a whole and the party which supports the Government as a. whole had a direct responsibility, an initiatory responsibility, it was this very question of widows' pensions, which my right hon. Friend had in mind.
From all sides I get earnest appeals to refuse expenditure other than that which is advocated by the appellants at any given moment. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is not a dictator. It would be grossly unconstitutional to suggest that any Chancellor of the Exchequer had the power to veto proposals for expenditure. He has not that power, and he has never had that power. Any Minister, whether in the Cabinet or without the Cabinet, who does not agree with a decision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a matter of expenditure, brings the matter to the Cabinet, and it is there, in the Cabinet, that it has to be fought out, and it is there alone that it can be fought out. We have had many suggestions about establishing a dictatorship in this matter. I saw a suggestion by a Noble Lord the other day that three dictators should no appointed, a sort of triple Mussolini, in order to check expenditure, to say what we were to spend and what we were not to spend. It is a very interesting suggestion, but what would happen if the dictators dictated and the Ministers refused to obey, and if Parliament agreed with the Ministers and the country supported Parliament? If you are to have a financial dictatorship, you must have a dictatorship in every sphere of your national life. Even then, I am very doubtful whether much economy would result. I have noticed this about dictators, in modern times at any rate, that they are usually most successful when they dictate what the people want. It
would be perfectly easy, if I were a dictator, to propose a reduction of £50,000,000 on the present Estimates, but I am sure that when I showed the proposals to the House of Commons, they would at once say, "Well, you had better dictate something different from that, or we will find someone else."
My right hon. Friend the Member for West Swansea could not help falling into the usual inconsistency of advocates of economy. He told us that in order to favour our conversion operations it was essential that we should economise and have a surplus of revenue over expenditure. In the same speech, almost in the same breath, he condemned the system of Widows' Pensions, although he desired to see them brought into force, because the whole expense of that system, on a noncontributory basis, was not thrown upon the national exchequer. Last Autumn, I invited the Press, and particularly the "Daily Mail"—which takes a great interest, in the question of economy, as some hon. Members may have noticed—to make positive proposals to reduce the expenditure by £50,000,000 or £100,000,000, which was the sort of figure they were apparently considering possible. No answer to that invitation was ever forthcoming from that newspaper or from its proprietor. The fact is that they, like a great many other people, like to gain popularity by crying out for economy and abusing the Government for expenditure, but they do not like incurring the unpopularity which is entailed when any particular proposal is advocated.
Although no answer to that invitation was received, I do not know whether the attractive and sincere speech of the hon. Member for Thanet (Mr. Harmsworth) last night was a belated response to it. My hon. Friend has a perfect right to plead consistency in the cause of economy, because I well remember his standing up in the early clays of the Coalition Government, when money was flowing out like water, and speaking with his utmost energy against the rate at which the money was being spent. My hon. Friend has a perfect right to take the course he has, and he may well point to his consistency over a considerable period. He had more claims than that. He put forward posi-
tive proposals. They were two. They had both evidently been well thought over by him. The first, was the abolition of the Department of Overseas Trade, and the second was the placing of press telegrams upon an economic basis. Those are both thoroughly proper subjects for discussion and consideration.
It is the duty of the Postmaster-General always to endeavour to put every branch of his service on to an economic basis, and the Prime Minister is constantly considering whether any Department of State can be considered redundant or not. The effect of the second economy which my hon. Friend suggested would be to increase the revenue by £250,000. I understand, in regard to the other proposal, that the Chambers of Commerce passed a resolution against it the last time that it was mooted. If we abolish the Department of Overseas Trade and dismiss all the staff, without pension or compensation, and make no provision for carrying on the duties in any other Department or in any other form, we might save about £350,000, so that under these two heads the relief would be about £600,000. I do not underestimate or undervalue any suggestion for economy, and even the smallest trifle is welcome to the Exchequer, but what I ask is this: if this £600,000 represents the whole constructive contribution which we are to receive from this quarter in the reduction of expenditure, is that all there is to justify the droning campaign of mechanical abuse and misrepresentation to which the Government in general and the unfortunate individual who has the duty of taking charge of the public finances have been continually exposed clay after day?
The question of allocating a portion of the Road Fund revenue to the National Exchequer was bruited about last summer, and eve since then it has been much canvassed and discussed. I think I may feel justly contented with the response which our actual proposals have met. There is practically no challenge to them of any serious kind. My right hon. Friend, in a masterly and conclusive argument, showed both the equity and the propriety of the transaction we are proposing, and also approved the general policy. The right hon. Member for the Spen Valley (Sir J. Simon) also told us that he considered that no charge of
breach of faith or anything like that could be urged against the Government for the course they had taken in regard to the Road Fund. We are getting on. When you consider the powerful interests that are affected by any movement in this field, whether from independent supporters of the Government or from keen and critical opponents, it is most remarkable that the main, the first, and the primary charge against us in this respect has already been withdrawn. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley, like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George), argued that it is a good thing to spend money on the roads, that motor transport would play a far greater part in the development of our transport system, that the roads must continually be improved, and so on. I entirely agree with all these sentiments, and I endeavoured in my own language to express the same when I introduced the Budget.
But the question we have to settle is what is the sum of money which is a wise and proportionate provision for the upkeep of our roads in the present year. We are proposing to spend this year a sum of not less than £21,000,000 for the upkeep, improvement and maintenance of our roads; that is to say, £3,500,000 more than the Road Fund was able to spend last year. Is not that ample and adequate provision? If I say that we are spending more than one-third as much on our roads as we are on the maintenance of the Royal Navy it will probably leave the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs quite cold, so I will use another standard which may more directly appeal to them. I will say that this £21,000,000 represents half the whole contribution of the Exchequer to the cause of national education during the present year. I think I may claim that in all quarters of the House the broad outlines of the scheme we have proposed lot associating the national exchequer in a beneficent sense with the revenue of the Road Fund—providing for the services of the roads next year, increasing the taxation on heavy motor vehicles and giving special relief to the rural authorities for the maintenance of unclassified roads—has definitely, in spite of all the rumours of controversy which were raised in the
past, come into a position where it will not encounter any serious or organised Parliamentary resistance.
Now I come to the proposal to tax betting. It was referred to by various speakers, by the hon. and gallant Member for Ripon (Major Hills) and by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea, who told us with engaging candour that when he visited a racecourse he delighted to see the beautiful horses racing together, but was quite indifferent as to the order in which they are arranged. The proposal to tax betting has always hitherto been argued on the basis that all forms of betting, legal, illegal, racecourse, credit, and street alike, must equally be recognised, legalised and taxed. On that assumption it would, of course, be necessary to make legal what is now illegal, to set up, and allow to be set up, under the ægis of the State in all parts of the country, new licensed betting houses invested with the full sanction of the law. That has been the obstacle which has hitherto deterred everyone who has studied this tax from imposing it. I considered that it had been too readily assumed that it was impossible to confine the tax to legal betting and I directed the Customs to inquire again and afresh into the question as to whether it was practicable, without injury to the revenue, to limit the duty in its operation to the preponderant bulk of betting in money values, namely, that which is legal at the present time.
This was the first time the Customs had been asked to report directly on this particular aspect. They reported that there would be no mechanical difficulty in collecting the tax, that it would be easy and inexpensive to collect the great bulk of it, which would be derived from the credit bookmaker, and as soon as this opinion was expressed, it was clear that we had entered into a new field. They reported, further, that the amount of legal betting was estimated to be at least £170,000,000 a year, and this was the view also taken by the House of Commons Committee. Five per cent. on £170,000,000 amounts to £8,500,000. We thought it. prudent, however, in making our estimate to allow for a reduction in betting due to the imposition of the tax and also for evasion, and laid-off bets, up to £50,000,000, and we reduced
the estimate of the taxable amount from; £170,000,000 to £120,000,000. This is is the sum on which we expect to obtain a yield of £6,000,000 in a full year. I want the Committee to realise that the decision to limit the tax to legal betting is a new decision, and that the belief that the tax in this form is administratively and mechanically possible is a new belief.
The moment that decision has been taken the moral controversy about betting cannot be raised in any reasonable form. No one has raised it here with any substance or purpose, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Spen Valley explicitly rejected the moral issue. Does anyone wonder that he should do so considering that the leading organ of his party, the "Daily News," has strongly argued for the imposition of this tax, and from the number of newspapers of the greatest eminence and solidity in all parts of the country which support it, one can realise that any attempt to import the moral issue into this particular proposal will be repulsed by the good sense of an overwhelming public opinion. From the moment that you do not seek to alter the law in regard to betting and gambling, from the moment you do not lend sanction and respectability to what is now illegal and set up all over the country licensed betting houses, from that moment the argument falls from the moral plane to the level of expediency, convenience, practicability and public policy, all extremely important aspects, on which no doubt there is a good deal to be said and upon which we shall be quite ready to meet our critics during the course of these debates.
I can only try to deal this evening with two of the arguments which have been used in the course of this discussion. I have weighed very carefully the argument that the illegal bookmaker will be favoured at the expense of the legal bookmaker. Whenever an import duty is imposed it penalises the legitimate importer at the expense of the successful smuggler, but that possibility never deterred any Government from the imposition of any import duty. We rely on the law to repress as far as possible illegal traffic and on the Customs authorities to collect the proper duties on the traffic that is legal. That is exactly what we are doing in this
case. It is true that, in betting the evasions and breaches of the law are much more general than in the case of smuggled goods in modern times, but it does not raise any new principle. Certainly no one can say that favour is shown to the illegal bookmaker. Although the intention of the tax is to tax legal betting, the illegal bookmaker when detected by the police, will be liable to a revenue penalty in addition to any other penalty which may be inflicted by the magistrates.
It is suggested that the legal and credit bookmaker will be ready on the imposition of this tax of 5 per cent. to become an illegal bookmaker. Let us contrast the position of the legal and the illegal bookmaker. The credit bookmaker takes a fine office in some fashion able or business quarter and summons the Postmaster-General to lay on a dozen lines of private telephones. He fills the newspapers and covers the hoardings with his advertisements, he receives every day by telegraph and telephone thousands of commissions from clients in all parts of the country. He conducts a business which, apart from the subject matter, is practically undistinguishable from that of any great city office. Compare the position of this credit bookmaker with the hunted, harassed and hounded existence of the street bookmaker. He has to pay a large number of touts and scouts and agents to carry on his business, protect him from the approach of the police and otherwise secure against their excessive activities. He lives a fleeting, furtive and insecure existence. I am not defending the inequality in the treatment afforded to these men; I am only stating the position. Can it be said that by the imposition of a 5 per cent. tax, you are going to make the credit bookmaker quit the comfortable aid respectable shelter of his commodious office for the risks of the hunted life of the unfortunate street bookmaker!
8.0 P.M
Take the case of the backer—and I must say the right bon. Gentleman the Member for West Swansea has shown himself a very apt pupil in these matters, he seems to have familiarised himself to a large extent with the details. Does anyone suppose that a man or woman who now bets with a credit bookmaker, who has only to go to the telephone and make his wager by word of mouth under the full sanction of the law, who has every facility of the public service at his
disposal, who can make his wager with a firm in which he has the utmost confidence, who have a conspicuous place of business, costly and substantial premises —can you suppose that this backer is going, for the sake of avoiding a shortening of the odds equal to 1s. in the £or to avoid a deduction from his winnings of 1s. in the £, to wander around a particular district in some manufacturing town looking for a mysterious individual into whose hand he may surreptitiously place half-a-dollar. The idea is obviously absurd. There is absolutely no possibility of anything being done or created which will transfer legal into illegal street betting, or which will cause bets now made with a turf commission agent to be made with an illegal bookmaker for the purpose of avoiding the tax.
Amongst the many letters I have received during the last few months sonic of the most pathetic have been those received from street bookmakers asking to be included in the scope of the tax, and saying to me how gladly they would pay such a tax to the Exchequer, and how much cheaper it would be for them than what they have now to pay for the organisation they have to maintain in order to carry on their business. The anomalies and injustices of the existing betting law are not created by this tax, nor are they increased by it. They are diminished by the tax. Why should the working man be hustled and treated as a malefactor and positively pushed to adopt every form of subterfuge of which he can think, while the wealthy man whose betting is a regular amusement does not even pay the smallest contribution to the State, but continues under the full protection of society, and enjoys the mail, the telegraph, the telephone, the newspapers, and every convenience just because he can get a banker's reference or establish his credit in some other way? At the present time the working man and the street bookmaker are pursued by the police, while the wealthy hacker and the credit bookmaker are aided by every public resource. We do not propose to relieve the working man or the street bookmaker from the present repression of the law, but surely there is no reason why some attempt at redressing the balance should not be made. And
so, while the police are active in one direction, the Customs officer will be active in the other.
I am less sure about the argument that the tax will produce seriously less than I anticipate. I have admitted, and I think it a prudent thing, that we have based our estimate on a turnover of £50,000,000 less than the normal amount. It may not be so. Continental gambling resorts take a high percentage and I have noticed that this is done without in the slightest degree deterring an ever-increasing number of persons from pursuing their illusions, and paying for them! But suppose there is a reduction in the volume of betting over and above the £50,000,000 I have allowed for? Suppose I am wrong in that? What would be the result? There would be a loss to the Exchequer. Hon. Members will be able to twit me about that. Are we quite sure that there will be a serious loss to the country?
After all, if people are deterred from credit betting on the present scale, more money will be available for other forms of ntertainment, recreation or amusement, and some of it may be devoted to more solid purposes altogether. Bookmakers are, of course, fully entitled to pass on the tax to their clients. The betting public is, for this purpose, the consumer. I do not know what method the bookmakers will adopt, but now that the matter has been publicly announced, I shall welcome the opportunity of discussing methods and machinery with the representatives of the interests concerned. I shall be quite ready to deal with these interests with every desire to make the tax work as smoothly as possible for all parties. I will do this in the interval between the Report of the Resolutions and the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. I shall not attempt to go further into details of machinery at the present time. But may I be allowed, Before leaving the subject of the Betting Duty, to say this: I do not think it will be as difficult to collect or to administer as has been suggested. We have the example of the Silk Duties. They were denounced. We were given hard cases. We were told of deadlocks. This is all fresh in the memory of the Committee. I have very little doubt that when next year I am dealing with the Budget it will be seen that we possess a satisfactory
new source of revenue without the slightest injury to the health, wealth, or happiness of the community.
I have one word to say about the stabilisation of Imperial Preference. By the arrangement I made with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hillhead in 1921, the first step was enabled to be taken on this subject. The importance of continuity in these arrangements is so obvious that it does not require to be emphasised. How are the traders and producers in the Dominions and the Colonies to invest their capital and to keep their trade running on normal lines unless they are to be free from doubt in this matter over a certain period? Nothing, however, interferes with the discretion of the House of Commons. It is perfectly open for another Parliament to repudiate the guarantee that has been given. It is perfectly open, but surely when it is found that a positive step will have to be taken, it will act as a practical deterrent, and surely we may also hope that as time goes on affairs of Imperial consequence will more and more cease to be matters of party politics, and that the parties, who may singly or in company some day feel able to replace the party now in power, will have other and much better things to do than to uproot and to tear down this process upon which the growth of our inter-Imperial trade will depend.
I am told repeatedly that fancy and optional taxes are absurd. The right hon. Gentleman opposite glorifies compulsory direct taxation. From below the Gangway Mr. Gladstone has been quoted as sweeping away all minor imposts. But the days in which Mr. Gladstone lived were very different. Direct taxation was then a mere bagatelle. Social services were practically non-existent. Now that our compulsory direct taxation has run to such an unprecedentedly high figure, when also all the primary comforts and indulgences of the masses are already taxed to the utmost limits, it would not be right to overlook either minor or novel sources, nor to shirk the labour of proposing and devising taxation which no one who is hard pressed in any walk of life need pay. If the present proposals are assented to we shall have added last year and this year £15,000,000 of permanent
revenue to the country by means of taxes which no one need pay unless he buys a foreign motor-car, or a musical instrument; unless he makes a bet, or unless she adorns herself with silks and satins. There is £15,000,000 of permanent revenue, that is to say, a greater sum than was required to set in motion the whole system of widows' pensions, and in addition, to give a relief last year on the earned income of the smaller classes of Income Tax payer. Can anyone doubt where wisdom lies in this matter? For my own part, I shall persevere in the direction of relieving the great basic sources of taxation by every reasonable optional medium, expedient or experiment which I can discover.
I see it has been printed in some of the newspapers that we have failed in our finance this year. Let the Committee consider for a, moment the problem I had to face. Last year's remissions of taxation imposed a loss on the revenue of this year of £12,500,000 additional. The loss on the remissions of previous years was £4,500,000. The shrinkage in the Miscellaneous Special Receipts was £11,000,000. The total prospective loss to the Revenue which I had to face, before any other loss was taken into account, was thus £28,000,000. The increased items of expenditure which received the sanction of Parliament, and which were canvassed in the strictest manner and were the subject of deliberate decisions, amounted to £19,000,000. I have provided the whole of that in the present Budget, and in addition sums amounting to £17,000,000 for the payment of the coal subsidy or the repayment of that part of it which was borrowed last year. So here is a total of £64,000,000 which I have had to find from one source or another between the autumn of last year and the spring of this year, either from economies, from the normal growth of existing taxes, or by additional resources in any direction in which they presented themselves. That task has been accomplished. It has been accomplished while the social services are maintained at an unprecedented level. It has been accomplished while we are providing for expenditure on education and roads on a larger scale than has been previously known. It has been accomplished without impairing the enormous provision for Debt redemption, on which this country
relies, or imposing any tax of the slightest consequence to the comfort, vigour, or health of the national life.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

Committee to sit again To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — FINANCE [NATIONAL DEBT].

Resolution reported,
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision, among other matters, for amending the Law relating to the National Debt, it is expedient—

(a) to charge on the Consolidated Fund, the principal and interest of any securities issued under the said Act in exchange for War Savings Certificates or National Savings Certificates, and any expenses incurred in connection with such exchange and the issue of the new securities; and
(b) to charge on the Consolidated Fund any additional remuneration to the Bank of England or the Bank of Ireland in respect of the management of securities issued as aforesaid."

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — FINANCE [SINKING FUND].

Resolution reported,
That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make provision, among, other matters, for amending the Law relating to the National Debt, it is expedient to authorise as respects the current financial year the issue out of the Consolidated Fund, in respect of the new Sinking Fund (1923), of the sum of ten millions pounds in addition to the sum now authorised to be so issued in that respect.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — RECREATION FACILITIES (URBAN AREAS).

Mr. CADOGAN: I beg to move,
That the Government should insist on the urgent necessity for local authorities to make adequate provision in town-planning schemes for the reservation of open spaces, and, if necessary, to provide some more effective power to enable local authorities to acquire land for recreation in all cases where it cannot be purchased on fair terms by negotiation.
In rising to move this Motion, I am somewhat apprehensive that the House, or what remains of it, will decide that I
too have made a "plunge into the obvious," to use an expression employed by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury with regard to another private Member's Motion earlier in the Session. But before I sit down I hope to induce the House to acknowledge that I have been fully justified in bringing this most vital and urgent problem to the notice of hon. Members. It is quite true that the subject of the Motion is obvious, but, like so many of our needs and grievances, the more obvious they are the more they seem to fail in obtaining redress. I was fully aware, in selecting the subject of this Motion, that it was not one calculated to appeal to those whose emotions are kindled or whose attention is rivetted only by what is sensational. But I think it will be readily acknowledged that it is not always the most sensational debates in this House which yield results most profitable to the community.
It might be urged that the subject of the Motion may not be very prolific of discussion, that it is lacking in those elements of acute controversy which make our Debates always so interesting if not always edifying. For instance, it is not likely that any hon. Member would dispute the need of the industrial worker in this respect. I am consoled by the reflection that, if the Motion provides no other cause for complaint, it will furnish the Labour party with another opportunity of disparaging private enterprise and endeavouring to demonstrate once again how lamentably private enterprise has failed in this as in all other spheres of human activity. If so, I shall certainly welcome the discussion. I do not anticipate that the members of the Labour party will make many converts to Socialism by instituting comparisons between what private enterprise and public enterprise have achieved in this respect. If they are as familiar with the subject as I claim to be, they will give that aspect of the controversy a wide berth. Public enterprise has hardly justified the reputation which, doubtless, its champions will claim for it to-night in this sphere. For many years public enterprise has lamently failed to meet present requirements and to make any provision for the requirements of the future.
With regard to the other section of the Opposition, which appears not to be present, I certainly anticipated that they
would, by some ingenious process of reasoning, divert the discussion to the subject of land values; but as they are not here it is not necessary for me to lure them into that morass. Apart from all questions of party strife, there may be other elements of controversy introduced. It is quite possible that some hon. Member may protest that at this psychological moment of our social history it would be more appropriate to teach our people to work than to play. Anyone who argues on those lines fails altogether to appreciate the importance of the subject, fails altogether to appreciate how work and play are interdependent, and fails to appreciate how efficiency in work depends upon sufficiency of recreation.
The Great War inculcated many lessons. It revealed many national infirmities and defects that we had previously either ignored or failed to take any pains to remedy. None was more humiliating or more disquieting than the grave statistics that were revealed as to the national physique of our people. Even to-day that has not been remedied. I think I am right in saying that the right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary of State for War, told us in his speech on the Army Estimates, that no less than 58 per cent. of would-be recruits were rejected by the Army medical authorities as unfit for military service. I understand that it was the grave statistics as to national physique produced during the Great War which first prompted the right hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) and all patriotic persons to address themselves to the subject of housing. Rightly, they attributed the deficiency in national physique to defective housing. But if they attributed it exclusively to that reason, I consider that they were wrong. I speak without fear of contradiction when I say that that defective condition of the national physique was just as much due to the lack of fresh air and exercise.
Members have recently had occasion to examine the report of the Royal Commission on National Health Insurance. If they have studied that formidable document with diligence, they will recollect that reference is made to the fact that the British Medial Asociation, in their evidence, expressed a doubt as to
whether, under a limited expenditure of public funds, the best results in the way of improvement of national health could be expected from the application of the money on the lines of National Health Insurance, and they suggested that, with an equivalent expenditure, better results might be expected from the application of the money for "Proper housing, town planning, with due, provision for recreation." That is testimony which the Minister of Health cannot afford to ignore. I earnestly trust that no Member will conclude that, because I dwell insistently on the physical benefit which recreation is capable of conferring on the people, I do so merely in order to render the working man more efficient and a sounder component part of the great industrial machine. I trust that hon. Members will give me credit for a rather higher conception of the duty that we owe to our fellow citizens. It is just as much my ambition to focus attention on the moral aspect of the question as on the physical.
If as many argue, with varying degrees of justification, we support racing in order to improve the breed of horses, I think that with equal reason we may support and encourage athletics, in the industrial districts of great cities, in order to improve the breed of mankind. And whereas racing produces the one result of improving the physical condition of animals, we can, in this way, improve not only the physical but the moral qualities of mankind. In describing the circumstances which prompted me to table this Motion, I wish the House to understand that., being a native of London and having lived in London a great part of my life, although I am quite familiar with the problem as it presents itself here in this vast Metropolis—and that, after all, gave a sufficiently wide field for my investigations—at the same time, I am prepared to confess that I am not cognisant at first hand of the problem as it exists in other great cities. I understand from all the information I have received, the conditions in other great cities are not dissimilar, although not quite so bad as the conditions in London. Therefore, I shall be able to argue by inference and analogy and adduce the case of London to illustrate the needs of the people in this respect, and I am sure I can confidently trust other hon. Members who
are familiar with the conditions existing elsewhere to reinforce my argument.
I do not intend to waste time in endeavouring to attach blame for our present situation to any quarter. When ever I can reconcile it with ascertained facts, I prefer to exonerate our predecessors and blame our contemporaries. It is obviously futile to reproach our ancestors, who presumably are beyond the reach either of praise or blame, whereas it is quite practicable to reproach our contemporaries who are here and who can make amends. At the same time, it is deplorable that our ancestors should have shown so little foresight in this matter. I remind hon. Members too that it is not only private individuals who are to blame. We cannot attribute the present situation solely to the enclosure of the commons. Local authorities for well high 100 years have had power to acquire land for recreation purposes, and by the Metropolis Act, power was given to the Metropolitan Board of Works to acquire land for the purposes of recreation. Successive Acts, notably the Open Spaces Act of 1887, vested in the local authorities power to acquire land for that purpose and with what result? If we cannot congratulate private enterprise on its achievements in this direction—and I am not prepare d to do so—we certainly cannot waste any encomiums on what public enterprise has done in this respect. Hon. Members opposite will doubtless attribute the situation in London to the avaricious London ground landlord, but as a matter of fact, the situation which exists in London to day is primarily due to the fact that this vast city of ours has been allowed to grow and to ramify in a perfectly haphazard fashion from the days of Casivellaunus up to the present day.
It would be very disappointing if my Motion only had the effect of promoting a purely academic discussion. It is my intention and the intention of the hon. Member who will second the Motion, to make certain suggestions as to how Government can address itself to this subject in a practical manner. Before doing so, I should like to indicate the gravity of the situation as it exists in Greater London. If any hon. Member has the curiosity to examine an Ordnance Survey sheet of that vast district which is familiarly known as the East End of
London, he will find that, roughly speaking, that area is bounded on the West by the Caledonian Road, on the North and East by the Metropolitan boundary, and on the South by the River Thames, and the most striking feature he will observe is how little of that land is painted green on the map—Hackney Marshes, Victoria Park, Hackney Downs —and if you take a magnifying glass, you may possibly discern some smaller recreation grounds with which only those who have a knowledge of London as extensive and peculiar as mine will be well acquainted. These are little oases in that vast wilderness of London streets and they certainly render a great service to the community, but when you have named the open spaces which I have just enumerated you have mentioned all that the local authorities have rendered available for the vast teeming multitudes who live in that area.
On the outskirts of that area to the North and East it is quite true there are some large open spaces—Epping, Chingford, Wanstead—but when you make allusion to such places as that, you speak of districts which lie outside the ken of those who live in the congested areas of the East End, and who have neither the time nor the means to reach such Elysian fields. In one of the writings of W. H. Hudson—I hardly dare mention that author's name in this House lest I should raise memories of an extremely wearisome controversy—there is a passage to the effect that it is the strongest impulse in children and young persons, both civilised and savage, to seek out the open spaces. But that is an extremely expensive impulse for the young men and lads in Hoxton, which is a far cry from any of the open spaces I have mentioned. South of the river the situation is hardly appreciably better, although it is true that in that district there are some wide open spaces. It may interest the House to know, how-ever, that in the Borough of Southwark there are no fewer than 14,000 persons to one acre of open space. That is almost incredible. I shall leave it to the hoe. Member for North-West Camberwell (Mr. Campbell) to tell us of the situation in his constituency. At a recent meeting of the National Playing Fields Association it was laid down as an. ideal to be aimed at that there should be 2'50 persons to an acre of open space.
How on earth, in such circumstances as those in which we live, are we to attain that ideal?
In order to give the House some idea of the relations between supply and demand in the matter of playing fields in the Metropolis, I am compelled to trespass upon the patience of hon. Members while I give a few figures. I wish particularly to instance the case of Hackney Marshes, which, as everyone familiar with the subject knows, is the playground par excellence of the East End of London. How well it deserves that title the House will understand when I say that of the 232 football pitches under the control of the London County Council no less than 100 are in Hackney Marshes. Incidentally, I should like to say that hon. Members who have not witnessed the scene there on Saturday afternoons, ought to repair the omission. When these 100 football grounds are in full use, the scene is far more inspiring than many of those titanic contests I sometimes go to see in the more important arenas of national sport. Here we have not the hireling gladiator, but the true sportsman who plays for the love of the game, seeking and finding the best expression for his vigorous manhood in athletic exercise. To return to the question of supply and demand of recreation grounds in London, it is essential, as I said, that I should give some figures. For the 232 football grounds in the year 1925–26 there were 878 Saturday applications. For the 320 cricket pitches in the same year there were 1,048 Saturday applications. With the exception of clubs playing on Hackney Marshes, the maximum allotment for Saturday afternoon matches of football and cricket has been seven permits for the season, so that the requirements of a club are met on only 14 days throughout the whole season.
It may he asked, Of what concern is this question to the Imperial Parliament? and it may justifiably be objected that this is rather a matter for local authorities than for the Government. I, for one, deprecate very much undue interference by the Imperial Parliament in local affairs, but when local authorities have insufficient powers, or when they do not avail themselves of the powers that they can now employ, I think it is time for the Government to
assert itself. The matter primarily cod terns more than one Department of the State. It immediately concerns the Ministry of Health, I think, the Board of Education—I am sorry that there is no representative of the Board of Education on the Front Bench this evening, although I know the Board is short-handed at present—and in a lesser degree it concerns His Majesty's Office of Works. In addressing myself to the Minister of Health, I would suggest that in reviewing schemes submitted to him by local authorities in applications for assistance from the Unemployment Grants Committee, he should always be solicitous that the laying out of playing fields should take precedence of any other of those schemes with which in the last few years we have become all too familiar and which seem to be of no particular value to the community.
Let the Minister make it quite obvious that any application for a grant, from the Unemployment Grants Committee which has recreation grounds as its object will receive favourable and sympathetic consideration. I think I could give the Minister certainly one, if not more, examples recently when that has not been so, and, in dealing with town-planning schemes, I should suggest that the Minister should be careful, not only that ample areas should be scheduled for the reservation of open spaces, and that not only should regard be had to the actual necessities of the moment, but most especially that regard should be had to the probable needs of the future. It is that omission which is responsible for much of the trouble with which we are faced at the present time. I am informed that there is a large area in the North West of London which 20 years ago could have been purchased for the purposes of playing fields at £500 an acre. The price which is now asked for that particular land is no less than £3,000 an acre. That is an instance of how careful the Minister should be to take a long view of the necessities of the community in this respect, and the Minister should always bear in mind this fact, that when you reserve certain areas for playing fields, you invest those areas with amenities which make all the adjacent land particularly valuable, and for that reason he should be careful that the land reserved should be a large area. Open spaces
hitherto have been secured fortuitously for this purpose. Therefore, could not the Minister, in all these town-planning schemes, maintain and enforce certain fixed and definite standards, say, for the sake of argument, the reservation of 10 per cent. of the total needs? It seems to me that there should be a much more clearly-defined standard laid down in these town-planning schemes.
What I would suggest as an all-important provision is that there should be some effective power to enable county and urban district councils, if they cannot acquire land by negotiation at a fair price, to acquire it compulsorily. The position in London at the present time is that there are no compulsory powers. Outside the London area the county councils have only power to acquire land for this purpose by agreement. Town, urban, and rural district councils may acquire compulsorily, it is true, under Section 176 of the Public Health Act, 1875, but this, of course, requires a provisional order, and takes time. It is true that land can be acquired for this purpose compulsorily under town-planning schemes, but this is a very long process. What we require is some more expeditious and cheaper method of acquiring land for this purpose. There is an apprehension, and I think it is quite justified—perhaps the Under-Secretary will relieve our anxieties on this head—that town-planning schemes will go through without adequate provision for this all-important service. The Minister should be careful to see that the powers which exist at present should be made full use of, and this applies particularly to Section 69 of the Health Act, 1925, which is the most recent charter of national recreation.
There is one other matter which I should like to touch upon in addressing myself to the Ministry of Health. While it is quite legitimate to anticipate that transport, when it becomes cheaper, more extensive, and more expeditious, will brine these remoter playing fields nearer to those who dwell in the congested areas of the great cities, and that to that extent cheaper, quicker and more extensive transport will help the problem, I should like the Minister to remember that when transport develops it has a. tendency to populate districts and so blot out open spaces. Therefore, I would ask him to
keep a weather eye on those districts where transport is developing, and to exercise, as much as possible, his power of reserving open spaces. I was going to make an appeal to the Minister of Education, but as he is not here, perhaps the Under-Secretary to the Ministry of Health will convey my appeal to him, because the subject of my Motion does affect the Board of Education.
I have it from the organising secretary of the National Playing Fields Association that, while the secondary schools are very well provided indeed with playing fields, there is a deplorable and lamentable deficiency in this respect as far as the elementary schools are concerned. I know it will at once be advanced that, in these days of financial stringency, it would be quite beyond the sphere of practical politics to expect any fresh expenditure in this direction. I often feel that we should not object even to Treasury demands nearly so much as we do if we could earmark our particular contribution to those services most needed for the benefit of the community. I should feel less aggrieved were I certain that in the last few years my contributions had been employed in the laying out of playing fields on the banks of the Thames rather than on any misguided attempt to raise the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. But dues the provision of playing fields for the elementary schools necessarily mean fresh expenditure or taxation? I think that the Minister of Education should enter into negotiations—if he has done so, I think he might do so a little more—with public and private schools, sports associations and the universities in order to obtain facilities for the use of their grounds.
The University of Oxford, which always leads the way in any pioneer movement of social welfare, a short time ago made arrangements through its athletic association that all its running tracks should be used in the summer months by the elementary schools, and also made arrangements that distinguished athletes should instruct schoolchildren in that particular athletic exercise. I should like to congratulate the University, for the reason that I hold the view that it is deplorable that so many of the public school athletes should have turned their great athletic abilities to no other advantage than
merely scoring spectacular triumphs in those arenas where their prowess is displayed. Surely they would deserve some of the exaggerated encomiums which are heaped upon them by Press and public if they would turn their attention to organising athletics in the industrial districts of great cities. In this connection, I am glad to observe that the Association of the Southern Counties Cricket Clubs have passed a resolution recommending that all their affiliated' clubs should provide facilities for elementary schoolchildren on their grounds. The recent decision of the Marylebone Cricket Club to hold instructional classes is also welcome, and it is to be hoped that that is a movement which will spread throughout the length and breadth of the land.
I have alluded to the fact that in some respects this Motion affects His Majesty's Office of Works. I regret to say that that Department has incurred the charge of not being too sympathetic towards the recreative needs of the public. It is alleged that they propose to charge prohibitive rates to the local cricket clubs in Bushey Park, a policy which has been carried out in Home Park. This change of policy has certainly caused complaint, and we can imagine what to expect if everything is to be nationalised, if this is the extent of sympathy we shall get when these things are socialised. I have a more edifying tale to tell with regard to private enterprise in this respect. There is a laudable endeavour on the part of employers of labour now to provide rcreation grounds for their employés. I was taken by an hon. Member of this House, a short time ago, to see the playing fields in the neighbourhood of Harrow which a large firm provides for its employés. There are 78 acres laid down in a manner which would be the envy of the governors of our great public schools.
Then only recently Lord Rothermere presented a. princely gift of the site of Bethlem Hospital—a course which might easily be emulated by others in his position. In the Report of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry, I am glad to see that in respect to the Miners' Welfare Fund, about 67 per cent. of the amounts allocated from the district funds is given over to recreation. All this is to
the good, there is no doubt, but in our great industrial towns the fact remains there is a most shameful deficiency in those particular amenities which need this kind of assistance most. It is being argued that it is inappropriate to indulge in any expenditure at this moment in this direction, while our housing conditions are so defective, but I myself believe that these two problems of housing and recreation are inter-dependent. Whenever I study the figures of local expenditure upon the two services, the conviction is borne in upon me, that while local authorities seem to be fully alive to the importance of good housing, they seem to ignore altogether the need of the recreation of those who live in the houses. At any rate, the expenditure on the two services seems altogether disproportionate.
Abroad, it is stated that we attach too much importance to recreation, but I am not so sure that is the case. After all, team games evoke the best qualities of mind, courage, swiftness to appreciate situations, energy, and unselfishness. I do not think we shall materially assist the young man by any grandmotherly legislation, vexatious prohibitions and restraints. Far better give him an opportunity to use his superfluous energies in healthful recreation. The question of control of public morals by the State is one instinct with difficulties. There are some persons who believe that the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic liquors is going to solve all problems. I am not quite so confident as those enthusiasts. I think that a rather more comprehensive and beneficial result will be obtained if you organise the recreation in industrial districts of great towns, than by any harassing, vexatious legislation. It has been well said that the most reasonable way of tackling intemperance and vice is so to improve conditions in great cities that vice will cease to be the only or the most attractive antidote to toil and care. If the young man has a good house and recreative opportunities, it will not be necessary to watch his goings-out and comings-in, or to have all those restrictive regulations which the adolescent naturally resents.
Nothing is more likely to make for peace and contentment in industry than the fact that the amenities of life are no longer the monopoly of one class of
the community. Playing-fields have been opened to a very much wider section of the community. I suppose it is fair to say that 50 years ago the average young mar or young woman toiling in a factory, office or workshop had no spare time to devote to any recreation. Employers of those days seemed to acquiesce in the degrading treatment of their employés. The physical and moral welfare of their employés seemed to be no concern of theirs. It was the fashion of the time to treat factory hands as if they were part of the factory equipment, and not even the sordid self-interest of the employers allowed them to understand that it was just as necessary to treat the human mechanism with understanding as it is to look after a machine. To me it is revolting to reflect upon the thousands of human beings who in those unregenerate days passed what should have been the brightest period of their existence in drab, monotonous toil, without alleviation of any kind whatsoever.
We have moved a long way since then, but we have not yet got far enough. While we are discussing this matter the population is on the increase. The children who are born to-day will in a few short years swell the ranks of those who need healthy recreation, and unless we address ourselves to this problem promptly they will find that their presence has only increased the difficulties and made the problem all the harder of solution. It is a supremely important matter, and one of great urgency. Industrial cities grow so rapidly that the provision of fresh air and exercise for their inhabitants becomes baffling, and defeats the best-laid plans of mankind. The fair open meadows on the outskirts of great cities are being rapidly inundated by a remorseless tide of bricks and mortar, which seems to brook no impediment, natural or artificial, Here and there, as in the instances which I have enumerated, we have some open spaces left, but they are few and far between. We cannot acquiesce in this state of things, in this policy of laisser-faire. Difficult as is the problem to-day, it will be far more difficult to-morrow, and it would argue a-poverty of conception on the part of individuals, local authorities and this House not to deal with it. I am convinced that it is at the root of our national well-being and, therefore, of our material and moral
prosperity, and I have pleasure in moving this Motion.

9.0 P.M.

Mr. CAMPBELL: I have very great pleasure in seconding this Motion, because all my life I have taken an extraordinary interest in my own personal recreation, and, also, did all I possibly could when an employer of labour to see that all those in my service had ample opportunities of recreation. I shall not refer entirely to London, as the hon. Member has given his experiences of London, but as a member of the London County Council and of the Education Committee it was my duty to select sites for schools, and when I used to go round with the inspectors to see the various school buildings now in existence I was shocked in many cases by the lack of playing grounds—not playing field, but playing ground, accommodation. I took up the question strongly in an endeavour to remedy this state of things, and in the three years' plan which is now running, and in which I had a hand I am glad to say, we have specially arranged to have sites for elementary schools where there will be ample playing ground. I have learned, if I may say it with modesty, that the seed I sowed then is likely to bear fruit. In the last day or two I have been to see the education authorities of the London County Council, on which, I am sorry to say, I no longer work, and I understand from them that they are doing their utmost to push forward schemes for better playing grounds, and, where possible, for playing fields, these being divided, if necessary, amongst various elementary schools. This is a work we want to push on, not only in London but all through the country.
I told the education officer of the London County Council the day before yesterday that I considered healthy education to be better for the country than much education. He looked at me and said, "Do you mean that?" I said, "I certainly do, because if you give children healthy education they will be able to learn better and more readily." I take the example of myself. I hated learning as a youngster, but I was not afraid of my games, and I say, with modesty, I have managed to get through somehow or other; and I am sure, that if only we do all we can to make our children—the
children in the slum areas especially—more healthy, it will be for the good of the country, and they will also be able to learn more. I do not agree with a great number of people who seem to think that sufficient is not being done for education. I consider ample education is being given to all those who wish to take it. Our continuation schools and our night schools are often not so well attended as they might be, perhaps because they are voluntary. I have many a time addressed meetings with the object of getting people to attend these evening classes. They have complained that they could not get sufficient education, and yet these classes were not fully attended. It may interest the House to hear that in the last 18 months the Board of Education have had before them and have approved no fewer than 200 proposals for playgrounds or playing fields, 44 of those proposals since the renowned Circular 1371 was issued. I do not wish to make this a party controversy, but I do feel pleased that despite all that was said about Circular 1371 and all the questions that were addressed to the Ministry of Education about it—

Viscountess ASTOR: The Circular has been withdrawn.

Mr. CAMPBELL: Yes, the Circular has been withdrawn, but all the 44 playing fields are in existence nevertheless. As regards the playgrounds throughout the various schools, I am anxious to see well shaped playgrounds and not merely useless pieces. According to the Rules of the Board of Education, so much space has to be allotted to each child, but that is useless if it is a small piece here and there. I want to see a piece of ground where children can kick a football, and knock each other over if they want to, and get healthy exercise. As things are in some of our elementary schools, you will find some of these places are almost impossible to play upon. We have on the way out of South London an estate known as the London County Council Bellingham Estate. A quarter of a mile further on is the Downham Estate, and you will see there the difference. One was built and completed a year of two ago in Bellingham, and you will find that there has been practically no recognition of the need for playgrounds or playing fields whatsoever for the children. There is
practically no accommodation at all there in this respect, and yet it is surrounded by more or less open country. That is proved by the fact that only a quarter of a mile further on you have the Downham Estate, and on that estate the County Council have allocated good playgrounds and playing fields.
The cost of the school medical service in 1923–24 was £1,220,268 and that of public elementary education £55,000,000, or 2.2 per cent of the whole. In other words, for every £100 spent on elementary education only £2 4s. goes to the school medical service. If we realise that the country depends upon the health of the nation. I was down in the slums the other day and somebody said to me, "It is all very well for you to look after the children's tonsils, adenoids and their eyes, but where are they to go when they leave these slums? Where are they to play and where is the opportunity for them to get any open air at all?" I am a keen supporter of economy, but it is no use saying anything about what our fathers did, although I must admit that my father, who was on the county council, is still alive, and he often hears from me as to what he did not do when he was on the council.
If many of these things had been done 30 years ago we might have been in a much better position to-day. These things to my mind are a kind of insurance, and any money spent on such schemes for healthy recreation, open air spaces, playgrounds or playing fields will in the long run, not be as expensive as it is supposed to be now because we shall be saving in doctors' bills. My hon. Friend on my left (Dr. Vernon Davies) may not agree with that proposition although I think he will be prepared to support this Motion as a doctor. I am glad to see that the country is at last awakening to this great need. I happen to be, along with the Mover of this Resolution, a member of the Executive Committee of the National Playing Fields Association, and I have travelled to many places to urge upon the community to do all they can to obtain playing fields. I dare say it is partly through that movement that there is an awakening and people are gradually showing a certain amount of interest in these matters.
We have had very recently the case of the Bethlem Hospital. The Government
have shown their interest in playing fields by suggesting a donation towards the Civil Service Sports Ground, and if the Government offer a similar amount to the community generally, I shall be the very first to support such a proposal. The Ministry of Health, I am told, are very keen on supporting all propositions put forward by local authorities in this respect. I hope that we shall hear from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health exactly what the Ministry are doing, and what they are proposing, because I do think that it is up to him, who has a knowledge of the Bills that pass through this House, that he should definitely bring to the notice of local authorities what are their powers, because there are live local authorities and dead ones. I know there are authorities who have other things to think about, such as building plans and extension of properties, that do not necessarily take into consideration this very great need. I, therefore, hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us what is being done in that line.
I read the other day that in 1924–25 £1,250,000 was spent by the Ministry of Health upon public parks and recreation grounds. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to tell us what will be expended during the present year. The London County Council have great powers in this direction, and I had great pleasure in joining the parks committee of the county council for the purpose of trying to help the Bill which they promoted. It was a Bill to enable them to buy land in or out of London to enable them to let grounds to cricket or football clubs which were willing and able to pay for them, and, to my mind, that is a very excellent scheme.
If you take some of our crowded London County Council parks you will find that they are not only full, but they have a waiting list of dozens of people and clubs anxious to be able to play and they cannot do so. If the local authorities can buy playing fields and let them out for small sums to clubs that are not very wealthy but are willing to pay a certain sum, the interest on the money paid by the local authority can be collected from those various clubs, and the people in the neighbourhood of the parks and open spaces in the slums—
such as, we will say, Battersea Park or Kennington Park, or one of these parks which are absolutely full—the people in those localities who, through no fault of their own, cannot afford to pay any subscription whatever, will be able to play in the parks adjacent to their houses, and other people will be able to play in these other places.
I have some figures from the "Municipal Year-book" for 1926, which I think will interest the House as much as they did me. In Aberdeen, with a population of about 159,000, there are 19 parks, with an acreage of 1,380 acres. In other words, Aberdeen supplies one acre for every 115 people.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Are they playing fields or parks?

Mr. CAMPBELL: They are parks or open spaces.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Not necessarily playing fields

Mr. CAMPBELL: No, not necessarily playing fields. Birmingham, with a population of about 919,000, has 2,795 acres, or 328 people to one acre. Liverpool, with a population of 803,000, has au acreage of 1,790, or 448 people to one acre. Manchester has one acre to every 464 people, and Sheffield one acre to every 384. London is difficult to calculate, because you have the London County Council area, the population of which is given in the statistics as 7,000,000, which makes 1,415 people to the acre; but that does not include the Royal parks and the municipal open spaces. Having quoted Aberdeen, I think it is, perhaps, only right to quote Glasgow, the population of which is just a round 1,000,000. They have 2,685 acres, or one acre for every 385 people. Aberdeen has one acre for every 115 people, and perhaps it is only right, because, although I sit for a London constituency, I am an Argyllshire man, that I should say that Inverary has only one acre for 490 people, and that is used, according to the statistics, for a football pitch and a miniature golf club. Seeing that a football ground is supposed to be about an acre and a half, I should be very sorry ever to play golf there, or football, though football, perhaps, would be safer than golf.
I should like to draw the special attention of the House to the Aberdeen
statistics, because they are the best of the lot, and, seeing that the hon. Member for South Aberdeen (Mr. F. C. Thomson) is now present on the Front Government Bench, I should like to congratulate him, because, although very nasty things are said about Aberdeen, they evidently do not economise in health. I have before me the Report on the London Council Council Town Planning Scheme, from which I should like to quote just the following few words on open spaces generally:
In considering as to the provision to be made for open spaces, we have had regard to the needs of London generally. In view of the health-giving properties of open spaces, it is hardly necessary to labour the case for their liberal supply in any town-planning scheme, on general principles alone.
The Report goes on to say that London has a special case, and it has, indeed. In some of our South London constituencies, the area given up to open spaces is very small. In Bermondsey it is 4.9 per cent., in Deptford 2 per cent., in Southwark 1 per cent., and North Camberwell and my own constituency of North-West Camberwell there is not even 1 per cent.; it is the worst in the whole of London. It is really disgraceful that, in one of the most densely populated areas in the whole of London, there is so little opportunity for the people who have to live in unhealthy areas for better recreation and open-air facilities.
I would therefore ask all Members of the House, when they return to their constituencies, to do their best to wake up their local authorities and their education authorities. The powers are in their hands. We wish to keep the nation healthy, so as to prevent a repetition of what occurred when the War broke out, when it was found that the nation included so many C3 people. We want to make the nation Al, not with a view to war or to anything else but the benefit of the nation. With a healthy nation we can compete with anybody and everybody, in business or anything else. I do hope the House will agree to this Motion to-night, and that the Minister who is going to reply will do his utmost to see that both the education authorities and his own Department bring to the notice
of all the authorities the powers that they have, and see that they use them.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: I think the House will be indebted to the hon. Members who have introduced this subject to its attention to-night. I cannot claim, unortunately, any acquaintance with the conditions prevailing in the constituency of the Mover of the Resolution, but I have a fairly intimate aquaintance with that of the Seconder, inasmuch as I have had the good or ill fortune, according to the point of view, of living in that constituency for a considerable time; and I think I may say for the hon. Member's consolation, if it be necessary, that no Member of this House has a better right to speak on this subject than the representative of North-West Camberwell, for, if there be any constituency in the country that is cursed by the want of Open spaces on an adequate scale, it is the constituency represented by the hon. Gentleman. The subject which has been introduced is one which, as I think we shall all agree, very intimately concerns the well-being of the State generally.
I did not rise, however, to speak particularly of the incidence of this problem from the standpoint of London itself, though I quite admit that the problem is one of a very intense character for the London population. I submit that it not only affects London, but has a very intimate relation to some of the industrial areas with which other hon. Members are very fully and intimately acquainted. For instance, I happen by birth to belong to one of the industrial areas of South Wales and I think hon. Members who know that area will agree with me that until recent times those areas have suffered from the almost entire absence of anything in the nature of facilities for open-air recreation. There are, as all hon. Members probably know, the valleys of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire which are long and very narrow and very difficult, indeed, of ingress and egress. They admit of very limited facilities for recreation at the very best, and yet in those areas, though there is ample land on the mountain tops it is perfectly true, available for the purpose of recreation, still there has been, in fact, until recently almost no provision whatsoever for recreation in the sense indicated by the hon. Member for Finchley (Mr. Cadogan).
In submitting this Motion to the House to-night the hon. Member embarked somewhat daringly, I thought, on a discussion of the rival merits or demerits of private and public enterprise in this matter. If I were disposed in any way to enter on that controversy with him I should commend to him this point, that if he will take the figures just given by the hon. Gentleman who seconded and will observe what private enterprise has provided for the whole of the population of Liverpool—

Mr. CADOGAN: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I think they are both equally to blame.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: Yes, I know, but perhaps the hon. Member will concede this point to me—that public enterprise has had a smaller opportunity from the standpoint of time to remedy this situation than has private enterprise, inasmuch as public enterprise has been organised for a far less extent of time. But the point I am making with regard to the figures for Liverpool is this. If I caught the figures aright, for the whole population of Liverpool, which consists of over 800,000 people, there is only available 1,800 acres of open space for the whole population. Why, there can be no better response to the challenge, if a. challenge was implied by the hon. Gentleman, than is contained in those figures, in that private enterprise has allowed a huge city to sprawl in that way over a very large area of ground and has battened and fattened on the proceeds of that development, and has only provided for a population of 800,000 something like 1.800 acres of open space. Moreover, it is highly probable that on those 1,800 acres most of those have been provided by municipal effort.

Mr. CAMPBELL: One has to collect these figures as one can, but I was speaking to a Member for Liverpool to-day and also to a Member from Glasgow and I understand as a matter of fact in both cases there is a certain amount of space allocated which is outside the actual boundaries.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: I do not want to press that point any further, but to come to the main point of the Resolution itself. I only wanted to controvert the suggested challenge implied in the speech
of the hon. Member opposite. Everyone will admit that we have received figures recently, conveyed to the general public in this country in various forms, relative to the physical condition of our people which in themselves present a very serious challenge. In fact the hon. Gentleman himself quoted a very interesting statement by the War Secretary recently in this House in which he said—I only give it from memory— that something like 56 per cent. of the candidates for entrance into the Army were rejected in a recent year on account of their physical disability. I observed the other day in looking up a similar matter on a cognate subject, that Dr. Addison, who was once a distinguished Member of this House, estimated that the cost of bad housing—and he was dealing with bad health due solely and directly to bad housing conditions— amounted in a recent year to the colossal figure of £40,000,000, attributable directly to bad housing. Every Member of the House— and I daresay most of them have done—if he is curious enough to look up the Reports of the medical officer of the Ministry of Health presented to this House for the years 1923, 1924, and 1925,will find in those Reports staggering figures indicating the total aggregate loss, estimated in millions of weeks, due to loss of work arising through ill-health. The figure is simply colossal. I believe I am well within the mark when I say the lowest figure was not below 70,000,000 of weeks, being the aggregate loss of time due to ill-health among the workers. Those figures are eloquent in themselves of the very serious lack of provision for the physical well being of our population, and I think most. Members of the House will agree that in the ultimate result it is far cheaper to preserve health than it is to cure disease.
Let us look at the subject from another angle. Industrial conditions are becoming somewhat different in their nature from what they were 50 years ago. The conditions in the workshops on account of increasing conditions of competition, are becoming far keener and far more exacting than they used to be. It is true, of course, that there is a tendency towards shorter hours of labour and far, so good. But for the period for which the workers are at work their duty tends to become far more strenuous. The degree of application is becoming
far more keen and therefore the necessity for relaxation is all the stronger on account of that keener application during the hours of labour. If I may be allowed to say so, in my humble judgment, with the increased hours of leisure which we all hope to see secured in the coming years, there will come another problem. The big problem that will come with this increased leisure will be the better organisation of one's leisure moments.
I do not mean that we ought to organise under the direction of a superimposed authority. I mean that we ought to be able to look to a better voluntary organisation of one's leisure hours than has been the case in the past. I regret that the hon. Member who moved the Resolution has given to the word "recreation" a somewhat narrow interpretation. I say that for this reason. There is recreation, after all, that is equally valuable with physical recreation. There is a form of mental recreation which we ought to stimulate and encourage. I am entirely at one with the hon. Member that this question of recreation concerns not merely the Ministry of Health, but very specially indeed the Board of Education. If any hon. Member travels through any of the mining villages of South Wales from top to bottom he will not find, with the exception of three towns, and in two of those only in a very limited way, a single museum worth talking about. There is not a single suggestion of an art gallery anywhere. There is not, even in most of these cases, a decent public library except in so far as they have been provided by the voluntary effort of the miners themselves. All this, of course, has relation to the question of recreation, though it is not, unfortunately, related to the interpretation given in this Motion.
Reference has been made to the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, and I am very grateful to both hon. Members for directing attention to this fact, which no one can controvert, that by the Regulations of the Board of Education itself it is not permissible for the same degree of recreational opportunity to be provided for the children of the elementary schools as is provided for the children of the secondary. Not only is there less cubic space per child inside the schoolroom, but the primary schools are prevented in the
main, or have been in the past, from providing on anything like a, comparable scale for the primary school children as was obligatory in the case of the secondary school children, and if, as we have heard from the Seconder, the Board of Education is prepared to embark on a new policy not merely permitting but, I hope, insisting upon more adequate recreational facilities for elementary schools, to that degree I assure him that I and my friends will be heartily behind the Board of Education in that policy.
If there is any Member in the House who has any doubt at all as to the practical value of the proposal involved in this Motion, let him visit any industrial area at this moment where the Miners' Welfare Fund is in operation. In areas that I have known since I was a child, where there was nothing when I was a lad but mere pits, ugly mounds, filthy heaps, to-day, by reason of the operation of the penny per ton demanded under the Sankey Commission scheme, those areas have been transformed from being ugly wildernesses into veritable gardens, and it is amazing to see the response that that has evoked from the general body of miners in the country by way of moving out of their overcrowded homes into the healthy countryside for recreational purposes. The social value of that must not be overlooked. The effect it has in giving men a healthy interest in healthy recreation. rather than spending their time fruitlessly in overcrowded cinemas or public-houses, is obvious to anyone who cares to see what is available anywhere.
But I must raise one issue with the hon. Member who moved the Resolution. He quite rightly calls for adequate power for local authorities to deal where necessary, and, if necessary, with, I presume, landowners who are demanding exorbitant prices for their land. That is all very well, but most of the areas such as those to which I have referred are already so heavily overburdened with other social demands that they really cannot bear this extra burden which the Resolution would involve them in. I do not say therefore, Do not pass the Resolution. Indeed it has every possible merit, but it is an argument which the hon. Gentleman opposite would do well to take note of, namely, that if it is carried on the invitation of their supporters it must
mean that they must change their attitude as a Government regarding the difficulties of areas in regard to which he made an announcement of so unfortunate a character yesterday from those benches.
Their trouble is not a lack of good will, but a lack of the wherewithal to carry out an advanced policy such as is herein suggested, and, speaking for myself and, I think, for most of my hon. Friends behind me, I think I can say we are heartily at one with both hon. Members who have spoken in regard to the spirit underlying the Resolution. We may argue with them as to how this problem has arisen and why it has arisen, but I do not think we need quarrel with them as to the way in which it may be removed. We join heartily with them, therefore, in a united appeal to the, spokesmen of the Government to give us some crumb of comfort, some word of encouragement, and an indication that the Government regard this problem not merely from a. purely financial point of view but from the larger standpoint of the general wellbeing of the State.

Viscountess ASTOR: I agree with the last speaker that we should be very grateful to the hon. Members who have moved and seconded the Resolution. I only regret that they have had to do it to such an empty House. When one thinks what the Resolution would mean to the nation as a whole if it were accepted and carried out, one really sometimes almost despairs of the House of Commons. Look at the empty benches of all parties! If it had been a question of a Vote of Censure upon Mr. Hope, the House would have been seething with excitement, but on a question like this, which will, in the end, affect the lives and health of thousands of children, the hon. and gallant Member, who moved the Resolution, had to speak to an almost empty House. I deplore it, and I can only hope that when there are more women in the House of Commons, a question like this will command a fuller House. One of my hon. Friends says that I am the only one here to-night. That is so, but there are so few women Members of the House, that they have about five times as much work to do as the men. I say that in all due fairness to the women Members who are not here to-night. There are far more demands
upon the time of the few women Members than upon the men Members. I do deplore the sparse attendance.
I have no intention of following the example of my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Motion and defending our forefathers, or even our fathers. Nobody can look back even upon the last 20 years and see the absolute blindness and madness of those who governed us when it came to a question of open spaces and recreations in our crowded areas, and attempt to justify it. It does not do any good simply to look back on this matter, if we are to learn a lesson. What we want to do is to look forward. We need not look so much to the sins of our forefathers as to see where we ourselves have fallen short. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health will tell us that the local authorities have power already. I believe they have the power, but they have to proceed by Provisional Orders in this House, and even with their present powers they are certainly not using them in the proper way. The reason why they are not using them is that the great mass of people are so inert and blind on the subject of recreation for young people.
There is a lamentable shortage of playgrounds in connection with schools. At Plymouth some years ago a former Member for the Sutton Division conceived the notion of giving a playground to be connected with a school, so that the children could go during school hours and base organised games. The intention was to set an example for other people who could afford it. That example has had an enormous effect upon the school children of Plymouth. The local health authorities say it has been of very great benefit. I hope that wherever there is a crowded area we shall have big spaces connected with schools, where the children can go during school hours and get certain forms of recreation and organised games. It makes a great difference to their work and their health. I trust that not only the Ministry of Health, but the Board of Education, will be fully alert to the importance of this matter, and that the President of the Board of Education will not go back in regard to this progressive form of providing recreation for school children.
There is no more pitiable sight in life than a child which has been arrested for playing in the street. Of all the pitiable sights that I have seen that is the most pitiable. Though these children may be fined, we stand convicted. The other night, I went to see 50 of these children, tiny children some of them, ranging from 10 years of age, although some of them were 18 or 20 years of age, who were under a probation officer. They have to meet once a fortnight. They were playing games. When I saw their keen, eager faces, and I thought that they had been arrested for a quite simple offence, it occurred to me that if I were living in a slum area with my six children, in two rooms or one room, my three boys would have been there that night. Even in a large house, with large grounds, nothing in the world that I can do can keep those boys from getting into mischief. If they had been in a slum area, I am certain that they would have been arrested for getting into mischief. It is the boy or the girl who is full of fun and life who gets into trouble.
The country as a whole is not really interested in this problem. If when people get on to public authorities they would persist in bringing up the question and saying it was a national question that could not wait, some progress might be made. The question of health cannot wait in any nation. The Report of the medical officer which has been quoted tonight shows what this nation loses in the health of its children. It loses more in that way than it loses in strikes and lockouts. When the question of recreation comes to the House of Commons it ought to be regarded as one of great national importance. Hon. Members have been talking about boys. No one has mentioned the girls. Girls to-day are taking as much interest in sports as boys, and it is a very good thing. It is no good providing healthy recreation for the boys unless we provide healthy recreation for the girls, because, in the end, it is the girl who leads the boy. That is not a new thing. There is great interest in these recreations for the girls. When the girls go into industry, they are not paid as high a wage as the young men, and when they want to hire recreation grounds they cannot afford to pay as much money as the men. The girls may
want to form a basket ball association or a lacrosse club, and they may have a little money, but even if they can find a field to hire, it often happens that they cannot afford to pay the price.
I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will assure us that he is going to do all he can to ginger up the authorities. The Mover of the Resolution said he hoped the Parliamentary Secretary would keep a watchful eye on the local authorities. The House of Commons must keep a watchful eye on him, but it is difficult for the Members of the House of Commons to do that unless their constituents keep a watchful eye on them. Some time ago, I brought in a Bill which I was told had no chance whatever of getting through, but the pressure from the constituencies was such that the Bill passed and is now law. When my hon. and gallant Friend talks about prohibition, all I can say is that we who are not prohibitionists but who believe in drink reform, know the value of the Bill 'which I introduced. By keeping youths of under 18 out of the public-houses it has done a great deal to send boys and girls into the playing fields and into sports almost more than anything else. That is a little out of order, but I just Ns-anted to give the Under-Secretary a little dig about what he said on that matter.
If the constituents of any place really get aroused on this question then we can press the subject on the attention of the Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer gets up and makes an impassioned speech in which he says that it is a question on which the Government cannot wait. Many of us look at this subject in that way. We cannot afford to let the children go on in the way they are in our crowded areas. It is not good for their health or their morals. Even old people like the hon. Member opposite and myself feel the great need of some recreation when we leave this House, and we play golf or go for a walk. Multiply that in the case of the child and you will realise how necessary some recreation is for the young people of this country. We ought not to be put off by the cry of economy. It is false economy not to do it, it is madness not to do it. We talk about getting young people into the Army and Navy. I am one who hopes that there will never be another war, but from the point of
view of the future welfare of the nation as a whole, its moral, spiritual and physical welfare, it is essential that we should not let any false cry of economy prevent us giving to our children every facility for games and recreation. I believe if the fathers and mothers in a particular area were really in earnest on the question of obtaining playing grounds for the children of the district, they could get them. There is nothing the people cannot get if they really care about it. It might mean some sacrifice. That is quite true. We do not get anything without sacrifice, and if we are to get reform in this direction, there must be some sacrifice by all. I hope this discussion will not get on to party lines, but that we shall all let the Minister know that, although there are only a few Members in the House at the moment, we are ardent and keen on this subject, ready to back him up in every way and to defend this proposal, not as an extravagance, but as one of the very best forms of national insurance for our chidren, who are to be the future rulers of this country.

10.0 P.M.

Mr. MERRIMAN: It is quite evident that on the principle laid clown by the Mover and Seconder of this Resolution there is really no disagreement in the Horse. This is not purely a London question but largely a problem of organising the facilities which we already possess. I am not going to spend time in restating the principle, but to support the Resolution by an illustration of what can be clone even with the facilities we now possess. I take the case of another town in a mining district, the town of Wigan, of which I happen to be the Recorder, and in that capacity, of course, have nothing to do with politics either municipal or Parliamentary. As far as Parliamentary politics are concerned, they are in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. But it is worth while calling attention to what can be done in a town like that which, quite obviously, does not possess any manifest advantages in the way of facilities for recreation. In the year before the War there were in Wigan four tennis courts and three bowling greens in the public parks. There are to-day no fewer than 35 tennis courts, in three different parts of the town, as well as eight bowling greens, and there is also a most
excellent library. These are the facilities for adult recreation.
We are not only concerned or chiefly concerned, however, with adult recreation, and I should like to call the attention of the House to what can be done with existing facilities in the way of juvenile recreation. In Wigan there is in existence a juvenile organisation committee. It has been in existence since 1917. It is true that this problem concerns not only the Ministry of Health but the Ministry of Education. On that committee the director of education of the borough acts, unpaid, as secretary, and the juvenile employment sub-committee of the education committee and certain other members co-opted from the members of the welfare committee form this juvenile organisation committee. It arose originally out of an attempt to co-ordinate the welfare organisations which came into existence in connection with the munition workers in Wigan. They now co-ordinate the recreation in connection with the elementary schools, and the welfare organisations of the town are able to advise leaving scholars as to the particular welfare organisation to join and the recreation facilities which are available for them. This really has not been a costly business. The original sum collected, by capitation grant or otherwise, was £1,900, and out of that there has been provided 16 recreation grounds which are in continual use throughout the year as football pitches, cricket pitches and ladies' hockey pitches; and it is done in this way.
I have no doubt this is commonplace to many hon. Members present but they will forgive me if I am a little trite on this subject. It has been done by using these grounds in this way. They are provided in the first instance in connection with the 17 elementary schools, and they are used during school hours exclusively by the scholars and out of school hours by the Juvenile Organisation Committee. There are some 30 football clubs registered with 600 registered members, and 18 cricket clubs with 350 registered members. In addition to that they are available for the use of tennis and hockey clubs, and so forth. Of course welfare organisations are those formed by the Sunday schools and by various works in the district. Again practically there is no cost. It is only a question of organisation. The Education Committee pays
the rent of these grounds which amount, to £140 a year, and which ranks for Government grant. In every other respect these organisations are self-supporting. Various fees are more than enough to provide the necessary funds for the dubs. There is a highly organised system in regard to the programme for the football season, and the grounds are filled and organised to their highest capacity on every available day in the year.
If this can be done in circumstances like those which I have described, it ought to be possible to be done elsewhere. In regard to that feature of the resolution which deals with town planning, as one of the representatives of Manchester, let me call the attention of the House to the monumental work just published in regard to the operations of the Manchester City Council in that respect. As to facilities for recreation, Manchester, as everyone in the House knows, is the St. Andrews of the South, inasmuch as it is one of the few places which has provided a municipal golf course. I do not desire to bring down upon my head the apprehension of honourable Members that I am about to threaten the House with a repetition of the old saying connected with thoughts of Lancashire to-day, and of the rest of England to-morrow. But I hope that so much of the rest of England as has not already begun to think and do the same may begin at once, and that the Minister of Health and the Minister of Education will insist upon their doing so.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood): The House will allow me, perhaps, after the views that have been put forward on the Motion with such felicity and ability to-night, to say a word or two upon the general position, exactly what steps have been taken in connection with this matter, and what steps have been taken also so far as London is concerned. My hon. Friend did in his speech intimate that perhaps I might be able to say something on the question of the present powers in relation to this matter, which powers might perhaps be extended.
Quite recently under the Act passed last year, that is the Public Health Act, 1925, more powers were given to urban and rural authorities, and also to the
county councils to acquire, lay out, and maintain land for the purpose of games and recreation. It is right that it should be said that under the Act of 1875, and the Act of last year, that if the local authorities could not obtain land for these purposes, they could go to the Ministry of Health and ask for a Provisional Order. Under the law existing at present, inasmuch as these Provisional Orders have to obtain the sanction of Parliament, it means delay; that is worthy of note by everyone who is naturally jealous of the powers of the House of Commons. But I know many hon. Members who think that when the Minister suggests a Provisional Order that the necessary confirmation from the House should not make for delay in particular cases.
Delay is the worst criticism, I think, that can be directed to the present procedure, because under the Act if any owner is not prepared to agree to a reasonable price for his land, he has to go to arbitration, and the price is fixed by an independent arbitrator. So far, then, as the powers are concerned in connection with the acquisition of land and open spaces, there is little to be desired except in the one particular matter, namely, that of the rectification of the delay which I have mentioned. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health in that connection is contemplating whether it is right to submit an Amendment to that particular procedure, so that, for instance, when he is about to make a provisional Order, and there is no objection to it, he should be able to make the Order forthwith. I think that would he a reasonable alteration of present procedure, and undoubtedly expedite the acquisition of land for this particular purpose. I should like to say a word on what is being done, for the House ought to know this, so far as the local authorities are concerned. The last Report of the Minister of Health, which was issued for 1924–25, shows that nearly £1,250,000 was sanctioned during that particular year for the purpose of acquiring land for open spaces.

Mr. CECIL WILSON: What is the acreage?

Sir K. WOOD: I will see if I can get that: I could not say at the moment. As far as actual recreation grounds
were concerned, the amount expressly sanctioned was about £300,000.

Mr. ROSSLYN MITCHELL: The hon. Gentleman is referring to England and Wales?

Sir K. WOOD: Yes, but these figures are not exhaustive, as they do not include the purchase of land by urban authorities which are not specifically allocated for that purpose by the local authorities. Even more has been done than is indicated by the figures mentioned. During the year alone £200,000 was sanctioned for the purchase by a particular town council of an area of 800 acres of land under the powers of a local Act.

Mr. MORGAN JONES: Do those figures relate to open spaces particularly?

Sir K. WOOD: Open spaces and recreation grounds. 'The figures show that more has been done than has been indicated. The figures I have just mentioned were not included in the figures of the Ministry of Health because they related to something which was done under a local Act—the purchase for £200,000 of 800 acres under a local Act. I am afraid that in the report to which I have referred the aggregate acreage bought is not given, but I will endeavour to supply that information to the hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. C. Wilson). While the House is quite rightly pressing for further action to be taken, we should not overlook the fact that a good deal of work has been done and much public spirit has been already shown by many local authorities in this connection. There is a particular authority to which I would refer. It is the Bexley Urban District Council. During the 1924–25 year, that authority has purchased an area of 204 acres, comprising a mansion house and grounds, for the benefit of the community in that district. As far as 1925–26 is concerned—these are the latest figures, and they do not appear in the report—we have sanctioned loans amounting to £1,500,000, and included in that amount is a very notable extension so far as London is concerned, namely, the acquisition by Ealing and Acton Town Council of Gunnersbury Park of 200 acres, and the acquisition of Stoke Park, 186 acres, by the Guildford Town Council.
These facts show that many local authorities are alive to their responsi-
bilities. During the same period, Bristol, Croydon. Finchley, Hendon (£20,000), Manchester (£25,000), Tottenham and Wembley, have applied for loans, which have been sanctioned, in order to provide open spaces. While, undoubtedly, we would be glad to see more done, we should not forget those local authorities which have made great progress and have shown great public spirit in this matter. I do not want to discuss the difficulties. The hon. Member who moved the Resolution suggested that there should be some theoretical standard, such as five acres to every 1,000 persons. Everyone would desire to work to such a standard, but perhaps more progress would be made if we encouraged, not necessarily such a high standard, but more steady progress by a larger number of authorities.
As is known by my hon. Friend who seconded the Resolution so ably, there is a special difficulty in the Greater London area. There, a great deal of progress has been made in connection with our building operations, and that has been a drawback, in as much as it has meant a reduction in the possible area of playing-field accommodation. I would like to state the policy of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health in this connection. It should be said, in the first place, on behalf both of the Ministry of Health and the Board of Education, that they are fully in sympathy with the demand for more playing fields and recreation grounds and that they are ready to entertain applications for sanctions to loans for parks and recreation grounds. But I must add the proviso in which, I hope, hon. Members will agree, that we must have regard to the rates in the particular locality concerned. I do riot want to specify any particular locality, but we have applications by localities where the rates are 27s. and 28s. in the£for a bowling green—to give an instance—and we have felt in cases of that kind we must ask the local authority to wait until a better time comes for that particular purpose. Again, I hope the majority of the House will agree with me when I say that before sanctioning such loans we must be satisfied that there is no failure on the part of the local authorities in regard to the other vital needs of the community which may be even more pressing.
I think the only matter in which I would differ from the Mover—and perhaps in this I did not fully appreciate his speech—is that I think the needs of housing are in many localities paramount at this moment. When so many people are living in bad and disgraceful conditions to-day and when there is an accumulation of claims upon the local authorities, then, from the point of view of the Ministry of Health, the housing needs of the community must come first. My hon. Friend also referred to the importance of town planning. I assure him that the Ministry are doing everything possible to encourage local authorities to adopt the splendid provisions of the Town Planning Acts, and I am glad to think that every day more authorities are engaged in operations of town planning and are seeking the undoubted help afforded by those Acts. If we can only get local authorities more and more to anticipate the future and to devise their schemes accordingly, it will be a great help not only to the community in a general way, but to the particular objects put before us in the Motion. I may say at once quite frankly that at the Ministry of Health we are not satisfied that more land can not be safely and prudently reserved for open spaces and allotments in town-planning schemes, and I assure my hon. Friend the Mover and the Noble Lady who has also put this matter before the House that we are pressing the local authorities to have regard to this most important aspect of the question.
Finally, may I touch upon a matter which I think has not been referred to at any length, but which is a matter of considerable public interest at the moment. That is the importance of the preservation of considerable tracts of land such as downs and cliffs and other national features in different parts of the country from indiscriminate building invasion. That is a matter to which we have endeavoured particularly to draw the attention of many local authorities, and we believe at the Ministry that the local authorities ought to act more and more in combination over a wide area in this connection. Under the Town Planning Act there is power for the establishment of a joint committee to act in cases of this kind, and I think it is very vital indeed to do so. I regret, personally, to
see from my own observation beautiful spaces of down land being encroached upon when there is no reason why it should be done at all. To stop it would not really be interfering with housing. It is a vast sprawl of houses, and I hope a good deal more will be done in that connection by the local authorities up and down the country.
We must not forget the value of gifts of open spaces by public spirited men and women during the last few months, and want, on behalf of the Government, to thank the many public donors who, during the last year or so and in years gone by, have acted in the very best possible public spirit in the gift to the public of open spaces in many parts of the country. Perhaps the House will allow me to-night particularly to mention three gifts. There is the gift of Lord Rothermere, who has purchased the site of the Royal Bethlem Hospital, and has there provided an open space of about 15 acres in the densely populated borough of Southwark. It is a great object that he has in view. It is to become a playground and a park, which will form a permanent memorial to the late Mrs. Harmsworth, and I believe it is the intention of Lord Rothermere there to provide trees and flowers and green stretches for the children in that densely populated neighbourhood.
I am sure the whole House will agree with me in thanking the donor for that truly noble and princely gift. There has also, during the same year, been a gift from a former Member of this House whom we knew very well indeed—I refer to the gift of Mr. and Mrs. Simon, of a house and park of 250 acres near Manchester. I am sure that that again has been really a very beneficent act on the part of those two public-spirited persons. The third gift, which is not so big, but is certainly of value, and to which I hope myself to be able to go down in a a few weeks' time, is the gift by Mr. Courtauld of 12 acres at Braintree. That is an instance of what can be done by people who have regard not only to their obligations but to their interests as citizens in a particular neighbourhood.
Finally, I desire to pay a tribute to the work of the Playing Fields Association, which during the last few months, under the presidency of the Duke of York, has done a great deal to bring to the
notice of the public the necessity of the matters contained in the Motion that we are discussing to-night. As far as my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health and my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Education are concerned, this Motion is pushing an open door. We desire to see, as one would naturally desire to see, having regard to the particular responsibilities which devolve upon the Ministry of Health in relation to the health of the nation, greatly extended operations so far as this particular matter is concerned. I suppose, considering that the slums and the densely populated areas of our country become breeding places of disease and crime, that if we could provide these open spaces and get the children of our country enjoying the fresh air and sunshine, the best medicine anyone can have, we should be doing the beet possible thing to bring up and foster a good, healthy nation, and believe that that is one of the best ambitions any State can have.

Viscountess ASTOR: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, will he answer a question? Some of us have been wondering whether there was any way in which the squares of London might be used by children, at least in the summer time, if not all the year round. For instance, there are a number of open spaces to which the people living around have a key, but hardly ever go into them. Has the Minister any powers to have those places open, at any rate, during the summer months for the use of children?

Sir K. WOO.D: I am much obliged to the noble Lady for the suggestion. As she knows, it is not an easy matter, as there are a. good many interests involved. There are certain squares in London where already the residents of their own accord have afforded the use of them to the children living around. I am sure if any encouragement could be given by my right hon. Friend and myself in that connection, we should be very glad indeed to offer it.

Mr. CECIL WILSON: There is a certain aspect of this matter on which I do not think sufficient emphasis has been laid to-night, and that is an aspect which affects not only the whole question of playing fields and recreation, but affects, too, the question of our schools, quite
apart from any playing fields they may have, and, at the same time, deals with the whole question of housing. I do not want to introduce into a discussion, which has been so free from anything in the nature of party controversy, anything of a controversial character, but I merely want to put it in this way, that the difficulty, so far as the large municipalities are concerned, is the whole question of land. If I may give one illustration to emphasise what I mean—and there are many more—I am speaking of the City of Sheffield—I will give a case in which the value of land, which was a few years ago agricultural, worth not more than £60 an acre, but when this land was required, in consequence of the extension of the city for school purposes, the price we had to pay for the school site was £1,600 or £1,700 an acre. I was not quite sure from what the Parliamentary Secretary said whether the Act of last year gave some additional power with regard to the acquiring of land, or whether that still applied under the older Act.

Sir K. WOOD: Under the 1875 Act, it was always within the power of a local authority to come to the Ministry of Health to ask for a Provisional Order, and if there was any question as regards the purchase price, then, Wader the Acquisition of Land Act, that matter could be referred to arbitration, and an independent arbitrator would then fix the price of the land, having regard to the fair market value.

Mr. WILSON: There has always been very considerable difficulty in acting upon that Act of 1875. Whatever the cause, it has always been felt it was not sufficiently in the interest of the municipality. Therefore, I think it is extremely necessary that in town-planning schemes of the future the Minister should see to it that we look further ahead than we have done in the past, because this matter deeply affects the health of the community. I am speaking again of one particular area only, but there the need for economy has compelled the closing down of what was being done in the way of regional survey and development, and that, I think, must he regarded as a disaster.
In regard to housing, it is true that the number of houses to the acre has been considerably reduced, and that a certain number of open spaces have
been provided as bowling greens or as green plots in the centre of groups of houses. But instances of action on the lines indicated in the Motion have been few and far between. The Noble Lady the Member for Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) referred to the prosecution of children for playing in the streets. As she said, in some of our industrial areas that is approaching a scandal, because the children have nowhere else to play. London treats this matter in an entirely different way The streets here are looked upon as children's playgrounds, and there is no interference, at least in such quarters as I have seen. Elsewhere, however, we are constantly having children brought before Children's Courts—children in some cases, youths in other cases in respect of dinner-hour games—for playing in the streets. As the Noble Lady has said, that is our fault and not their crime, and it provides another argument for doing more than we have done to provide recreation grounds. A few months ago the Chief Constable of the Borough of Kendal, Westmoreland, referring to the prosecution of boys for doing damage by breaking windows, said that, in his opinion, such cases were due entirely to the total insufficiency of playgrounds.
There is one other aspect of this matter as it affects industrial areas to which I wish to refer. In Sheffield, in the days before the War, an investigation showed that 300 tons of solid matter per square mile was falling on the city each year. Unless the Ministry of Health deals with the question of the smoke nuisance, some of these open spaces will be destroyed as a result of the effect of smoke upon them. We have an area in Sheffield where, looking to the south, there is not a single tree within two miles; not within three-quarters of a mile looking to the east; one mile looking to the west; and a mile and a half towards the north. Trees cannot grow there, and the health of the people is being very seriously impaired by the existing condition of things. I very cordially agree with the Resolution which the hon. and gallant Member has put down, and I hope the Ministry of Health will press upon the authorities the need for action.

Mr. TREVELYAN THOMSON: I am sure the House must have heard with
interest the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health with regard to this Resolution, but I am not quite sure how far he is satisfied with regard to the progress being made, particularly with regard to housing and town planning. In reply to a vital question which I put to the Government last week, I was told that out of 1,098 local authorities, only 273had putin housing and town-planning schemes. Therefore I think this House will do well to encourage the Ministry to bring pressure to bear upon local authorities in order that they may get on with this most important work. There is no doubt that in the past our towns have suffered very much through a lack of vision and foresight in these matters. It is true that we have not had the powers in the past to deal with this question which we have to-day, and I think our powers are quite ample if only they are put into force. I know we must do all we can to foster public opinion on this subject, and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will help us by bringing pressure to bear upon local authorities to induce them to get on with this most important work.
Very shortly the Minister may ask for additional power to act in regard to town planning, but he will not need those powers if we can stimulate the local authorities to take action on their own account. There is a great need of providing in town-planning schemes for playgrounds and recreation grounds. We have just been told by the Parliamentary Secretary that £1,500,000 has been sanctioned last year for recreation and playing fields, but he did not give us the acreage. If one reckons the cost at £100 per acre, that would only give about 15 acres to each local authority, which does not come up to the standard of five acres per 1,000 of the population suggested by the Mover of the Resolution. Other towns besides Sheffield find a difficulty in regard to the cost of land, but even if land could be got cheaply, it is difficult to induce local authorities to purchase it on account of their present very high rates.
I do not know how far the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to make representations to the. Treasury for a Grant-in-Aid of what really is a national service. I am rather afraid from his reply in regard to other things that one cannot hope for very much sympathy on
this question. I submit that the providing of playing fields, which are necessary to promote the health of the people, is largely a national service, and if we can stimulate public opinion in this House and in the country, then we may get assistance from the Treasury, so that the local authorities can receive a 50–50 grant to encourage them to get on with this very excellent work. I am sure the whole House will wish to associate itself with, the thanks which the Parliamentary Secretary expressed to those generous donors to whom he referred, who have made such valuable gifts. One may hope that their example may cause others to emulate them, because there is no doubt that a public man can bestow no greater benefit upon his neighbours than the gift of recreation grounds, open places and playing fields, especially in large congested areas.

Mr. A. R. KENNEDY: Towards the conclusion of this Debate, I wish to emphasise the fact that the somewhat gloomy—it may be rightly gloomy—view expressed with regard to the position and the need for playing fields at the pesent moment in this country does not extend equally to all places. For instance, Preston, which I have the honour to represent—in some ways a typical industrial town, with some 200,000 people—is reasonably well provided for, as I he result of intelligent anticipation by those who have in the past governed its destinies. It is situated on some. 4,000 acres of land, and has parks extending to between 250 and 300 acres, of which 154 acres are devoted exclusively to recreation, and, to a large extent, to recreation for school children. I am assured by the authorities there that they consider that they are reasonably well provided for, I observe that those active towns which, in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary, were singled out for special praise, such as Guildford, Bexhill-on-Sea, and so on, were probably, in this connection, not so important, because they may be more wealthy than many industrial towns in this country.
It may be that there is a great want of recreation grounds, both for adults and for children, in industrial areas, but in this Debate it is impossible, it seems to me, to get any general view of the situation. We have heard, in the comprehensive speech of the Mover of this
Motion, about the position in London, and it is a singularly pathetic and unfortunate position. Any of us who have been associated, however little, with London life, will appreciate the magnitude of the problem in London. It is a special problem, and measures which may deal adequately with provincial towns and supply their needs in this matter, will be not necessarily suitable for London. May I give a minor illustration of the difficulty? In common with other members of my profession, I am interested in a working men's club in Drury Lane, and some few years ago, since the War, we were minded, if we could, to acquire a recreation ground. Competent persons went through London, North, South, East and West, searching for a recreation ground, and I may say that we were prepared to pay, through the generosity of subscribers, a considerable sum of money for any suitable ground. The nearest ground we could acquire was in Tottenham, at a distance of about 10 miles from Drury Lane. One is appalled when one considers what are to be the remedies for the problem in London. There is the difficulty of transport, which, though not the only difficulty, is a very important one. It costs a young man or boy 6d. to go to the recreation ground at Tottenham from this; club, and 6d. to return, and I do not think that that recreation ground can be more than a casual source of recreation to most of the members of the club.
There is another difficulty which exists, and which accentuates the problem, as it seems to me. In my experience a number of the grounds in and around cities are only used, perhaps, once or twice a week. I should like to see some of these grounds used far more frequently, and it seems to me that the problem of the school children, and their inaccessibility at the present time, in many cases, to recreation grounds, might be met by a more generous use of existing grounds for their purposes Those are some of the difficulties that exist. Nobody has mentioned one difficulty, which those concerned in running recreation grounds appreciate to the full, that of maintaining the grounds once they are acquired. The acquisition o the grounds by generous gift or purchase is not the measure of the problem. The ground has to be maintained, and local authorities know that this is a serious
item. I myself am quite satisfied with the statement that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health gave us to-night as to the activities of the Ministry and as to the desire of the Ministry to promote the development of recreation grounds, both for adults and for children. I do not think on a fair view of the situation that the Government of the day can be expected to do more than he indicated is being done by the Ministry to bring pressure on the local authorities. I do not see how any step of a drastic character, sufficient to meet the problem even in a small degree, can be expected to be obtained solely by Government action. The chief value of this Debate arises from the propaganda it will be for the cause of national recreation. The future of national recreation and the provision of suitable grounds depends on public opinion. That there is a strong public opinion on this movement I am sure, but it has been inadequately represented on these benches to-night. It behoves those of us who are really keen on this subject to do everything we can to strengthen that force of public opinion.

Mr. A. HOPKINSON: I do not think any of us were astonished to hear the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. Trevelyan Thomson) singing the praises of town planning, but I was surprised a few minutes ago to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, who has so often given proof of a sound commonsense, also doing lip service to it. It is not considered quite proper to criticise town planning at the present day. Like the League of Nations, it is one of those things to which we are all supposed to do lip services. But I come, as a member of a local authority, in contact with town planning, and it may be useful in the five minutes remaining if a few of us were to do as Dr. Johnson suggested, "free our minds from cant," and consider what town planning is. Let us consider who were the great town planners of history. Surely the patron saint of town planners is the late emperor Nero. He was convinced, and he is borne out by the satires of Juvenal, that the town planning of Rome was extremely defective, and that the tenement
dwellings of the poor constituted a great eyesore. Being convinced of the need for town planning, he burned the whole place down. The next was Napoleon III, who ruined the greater part of Paris by town planning and Haussmannising it. The third was the late Emperor William, of Germany, who was responsible for those appalling cities on the Rhine. We suffer to-day under the activities of long-haired men and short-haired women who call themselves town-planning experts. A vested interest in salaries has grown up like the vested interest at Geneva., called the League of Nations.
People, whose relatives cannot find a decent job for them, and who are manifestly incapable of earning their living, run round England, saying, "We are town planners," until an outraged populace gives them a job and a salary. They then assemble a staff in an office with maps and, with various coloured pencils and chalks, they make wavy lines on the maps, marking new roads and various other things. In the case of my native city of Manchester, they actually go to the expense of some thousands of pounds to prepare portentous volumes full td maps which, from my own careful examination of them, convey no information of any sort of value to anyone except such as could be got out of "Whitakers Almanack." I have very carefully examined my own district and I find a road that was made a main road when I was chairman of the highways committee and was excellently paved with granite setts is marked on the town-planning map as not even a third-class road.
Let us consider the fact that town planning is not altogether a new thing. I have pointed out that it existed in Rome in the time of the Emperors. It existed also in Manchester in the early days of the industrial age In those days our ancestors used to grind the faces of the poor in their cotton mills, and used to employ children for periods amounting to anything up to 24 hours per day. Being town planners, and thoroughly entering into the spirit of the thing, they put the hovels of the poor all round their mills, because it was obvious that the children could -not crawl more than a few yards after they had done 18 hours' work in the mill. Being town planners, they
planned the slums of Manchester on the most approved principles of that particular age. We run a very great risk of repeating some of the errors of our ancestors, because we do not know in the least what we are planning for. Are we planning for a greatly increased population, a richer population with a higher standard of living, or are we planning, as I hope, for a vastly decreased population, which will not be everlastingly clamouring for anything like so high a standard of living as exists at present?

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Government should insist on the urgent necessity for local authorities
to make adequate provision in town-planning schemes for the reservation of open spaces, and, if necessary, to provide some more effective power to enable local authorities to acquire land for recreation in all cases where it cannot be purchased on fair terms by negotiation.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Orders of the Day — ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Adjourned accordingly at Eleven o'Clock.